'
Prince Ahmed, who had believed that the sultan his father would
have been satisfied with so singular and useful a tent as that
which he had brought, and that he would not have imposed any new
task upon him which might hazard the fairy's displeasure; was
thunderstruck at this new request, notwithstanding the assurance
she had given him of granting him whatever lay in her power. After
a long silence, he said, 'I beg of your majesty to be assured that
there is nothing I would not undertake to prolong your life, but I
wish it might not be by means of my wife. For this reason I dare
not promise to bring the water. All I can do is to assure you I
will ask her; but it will be with as great reluctance as when I
asked for the tent.'
The next morning Prince Ahmed returned to the fairy Pari Banou, and
related to her sincerely and faithfully all that had passed at the
sultan his father's court, from the giving of the tent, which he
told her he received with the utmost gratitude, to the new request
he had charged him to make, and when he had done, he added: 'but,
my princess, I only tell you this as a plain account of what passed
between me and my father. I leave you to your own discretion to
gratify or reject this new desire.
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