'
While I was thus giving myself over to melancholy thoughts, the
tailor came in. 'An old man,' said he, 'whom I do not know, brings
me here your hatchet and cords, which he found in his way, as he
tells me, and understood from your comrades that you lodge here;
come out and speak to him, for he will deliver them to none but
yourself.'
At this discourse I changed colour, and began to tremble. While the
tailor was asking me the reason, my chamber door opened, and the
old man appeared to us with my hatchet and cords. This was the
genie, the ravisher of the fair princess of the Isle of Ebony, who
had thus disguised himself, after he had treated her with the
utmost barbarity. 'I am a genie,' said he, 'son of the daughter of
Eblis, prince of genies. Is not this your hatchet, and are not
these your cords?'
After the genie had put the question to me, he gave me no time to
answer, nor was it in my power, so much had his terrible aspect
disordered me. He grasped me by the middle, dragged me out of the
chamber, and mounting into the air, carried me up to the skies with
such swiftness that I was unable to take notice of the way he
carried me. He descended again in like manner to the earth, which
on a sudden he caused to open with a stroke of his foot, and so
sank down at once, where I found myself in the enchanted palace,
before the fair princess of the Isle of Ebony.
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