'
'Sir,' said the princess, 'I am ready to obey you in all that you
may be pleased to command me.'
The princess, the Lady of Beauty, went into her apartment, from
whence she brought in a knife, which had some Hebrew words engraven
on the blade; she made the sultan, the master of the chamberlains,
the little slave, and myself, go down into a private court of the
palace, and there left us under a gallery that went round it. She
placed herself in the middle of the court, where she made a great
circle, and within it she wrote several words in Arabic characters,
some of them ancient, and others of those which they call the
characters of Cleopatra.
When she had finished and prepared the circle as she thought fit,
she placed herself in the centre of it, where she began spells, and
repeated verses out of the Koran. The air grew insensibly dark, as
if it had been night and the whole world about to be dissolved; we
found ourselves struck with a panic, and this fear increased the
more when we saw the genie, the son of the daughter of Eblis,
appear on a sudden in the shape of a lion of a frightful size.
As soon as the princess perceived this monster, 'You dog,' said
she, 'instead of creeping before me, dare you present yourself in
this shape, thinking to frighten me?'
'And thou,' replied the lion, 'art thou not afraid to break the
treaty which was solemnly made and confirmed between us by oath,
not to wrong or to do one another any hurt?'
'Oh! thou cursed creature!' replied the princess, 'I can justly
reproach thee with doing so.
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