but, raising him, kissed him upon the cheek, calling him
son. Then the king and Abdallah rode down before the ranks and the whole
army waved their swords, and the flashing of the sunlight on the blades
was like lightning, and they shouted, and the noise was like the pealing
of thunder.

Before Abdallah marched off to the wars he and the princess were
married, and for a whole fortnight nothing was heard but the sound of
rejoicing. The city was illuminated from end to end, and all of the
fountains ran with wine instead of water. And of all those who rejoiced,
none was so happy as the princess, for never had she seen one whom
she thought so grand and noble and handsome as her husband. After the
fortnight had passed and gone, the army marched away to the wars with
Abdallah at its head.

Victory after victory followed, for in every engagement the Emperor of
India's troops were driven from the field. In two months' time the war
was over and Abdallah marched back again--the greatest general in the
world. But it was no longer as Abdallah that he was known, but as the
Emperor of India, for the former emperor had been killed in the war, and
Abdallah had set the crown upon his own head.

The little taste that he had had of conquest had given him an appetite
for more, so that with the armies the Genie provided him he conquered
all the neighboring countries and brought them under his rule. So he
became the greatest emperor in all the world; kings and princes kneeled
before him, and he, Abdallah, the fagot-maker, looking about him, could
say: "No one in all the world is so great as I!"

Could he desire anything more?

Yes; he did! He desired to be rid of the Genie!

When he thought of how all that he was in power and might--he, the
Emperor of the World--how all his riches and all his glory had come
as gifts from a hideous black monster with only one eye, his heart was
filled with bitterness. "I cannot forget," said he to himself, "that
as he has given me all these things, he may take them all away again.
Suppose that I should lose my ring and that some one else should find
it; who knows but that they might become as great as I, and strip me
of everything, as I have stripped others. Yes; I wish he was out of the
way!"

Once, when such thoughts as these were passing through his mind, he was
paying a visit to his father-in-law, the king. He was walking up and
down the terrace of the garden meditating on these matters, when,
le