when he saw the African magician dead, and
his face already livid by the strength of the poison, he embraced
Alla ad Deen with great tenderness, and said, "My son, be not
displeased at my proceedings against you; they arose from my
paternal love; and therefore you ought to forgive the excesses to
which it hurried me." "Sir," replied Alla ad Deen, "I have not
the least reason to complain of your majesty's conduct, since you
did nothing but what your duty required. This infamous magician,
the basest of men, was the sole cause of my misfortune. When your
majesty has leisure, I will give you an account of another
villanous action he was guilty of towards me, which was no less
black and base than this, from which I was preserved by the
providence of God in a very miraculous way." "I will take an
opportunity, and that very shortly," replied the sultan, "to hear
it; but in the mean time let us think only of rejoicing, and the
removal of this odious object."

Alla ad Deen ordered the magician's corpse to be removed and
thrown upon a dunghill, for birds and beasts to prey upon. In the
mean time, the sultan commanded the drums, trumpets, cymbals, and
other instruments of music to announce his joy to the public, and
a festival of ten days to be proclaimed for the return of the
princess and Alla ad Deen.

Thus Alla ad Deen escaped once more the almost inevitable danger
of losing his life; but this was not the last, since he ran as
great a hazard a third time.

The African magician had a younger brother, who was equally
skilful as a necromancer, and even surpassed him in villany and
pernicious designs. As they did not live together, or in the same
city, but oftentimes when one was in the east, the other was in
the west, they failed not every year to inform themselves, by
their art, each where the other resided, and whether they stood
in need of one another's assistance.

Some time after the African magician had failed in his enterprise
against Alla ad Deen, his younger brother, who had heard no
tidings of him, and was not in Africa, but in a distant country,
had the wish to know in what part of the world he sojourned, the
state of his health, and what he was doing; and as he, as well as
his brother, always carried a geomantic square instrument about
him, he prepared the sand, cast the points, and drew the figures.
On examining the planetary mansions, he found that his brother
was no longer living, but had been poisoned; and