m, and returned to the palace.
Upon his arrival, he understood that the queen waited for him
with great impatience in the garden. He went to her, and she no
sooner perceived him, than she came in great haste to meet him.
"My dear Beder!" exclaimed she, "it is said, with a great deal of
reason, that nothing more forcibly shews the excess of love than
absence from the object beloved. I have had no quiet since I saw
you, and it seems ages since I have been separated from you. If
you had stayed ever so little longer, I was preparing to come and
fetch you once more to my arms."

"Madam," replied king Beder, "I can assure your majesty, I was no
less impatient to rejoin you; but I could not refuse to stay with
an uncle who loves me, and had not seen me for so long a time. He
would have kept me still longer, but I tore myself away from him,
to come where love calls me. Of all the collations he prepared
for me, I have only brought away this cake, which I desire your
majesty to accept." King Beder, having wrapped up one of the two
cakes in a handkerchief, took it out, and presented it to the
queen, saying, "I beg your majesty to accept of it."

"I do accept it with all my heart," replied the queen, receiving
it, "and will eat it with pleasure for yours and your good
uncle's sake; but before I taste of it, I desire you will, for my
sake, eat a piece of this, which I have made for you during your
absence." "Fair queen," answered king Beder, receiving it with
great respect, "such hands as your majesty's can never make
anything but what is excellent, and I cannot sufficiently
acknowledge the favour you do me."

King Beder then artfully substituted in the place of the queen's
cake the other which old Abdallah had given him, and having
broken off a piece, he put it in his mouth, and cried, while he
was eating, "Ah! queen, I never tasted anything so excellent in
my life." They being near a cascade, the sorceress seeing him
swallow one bit of the cake, and ready to eat another, took a
little water in the palm of her hand, and throwing it in the
king's face, said, "Wretch! quit that form of a man, and take that
of a vile horse, blind and lame."

These words not having the desired effect, the sorceress was
strangely surprised to find King Beder still in the same form,
and that he only started for fear. Her cheeks reddened; and as
she saw that she had missed her aim, "Dear Beder," cried she,
"this is nothing; recover yourself. I did