s father's palace, and shut himself in his apartment,
to give himself entirely up to his affliction, without attempting
to pursue the ravisher. But as his generosity, love, and courage,
would not suffer this, he continued on his way to the palace
where he had left his princess.

When he arrived, the palace-keeper, who was by this time
convinced of his fatal credulity, in believing the artful Hindoo,
threw himself at his feet with tears in his eyes, accused himself
of the crime, which unintentionally he had committed, and
condemned himself to die by his hand. "Rise," said the prince to
him, "I do not impute the loss of my princess to thee, but to my
own want of precaution. But not to lose time, fetch me a
dervish's habit, and take care you do not give the least hint
that it is for me."

Not far from this palace there stood a convent of dervishes, the
superior of which was the palace-keeper's particular friend. He
went to his chief, and telling him that a considerable officer at
court and a man of worth, to whom he had been very much obliged
and wished to favour, by giving him an opportunity to withdraw
from some sudden displeasure of the emperor, readily obtained a
complete dervish's habit, and carried it to prince Firoze Shaw.
The prince immediately pulled off his own dress, put it on, and
being so disguised, and provided with a box of jewels, which he
had brought as a present to the princess, left the palace,
uncertain which way to go, but resolved not to return till he had
found out his princess, and brought her back again, or perish in
the attempt.

But to return to the Hindoo; he governed his enchanted horse so
well, that he arrived early next morning in a wood, near the
capital of the kingdom of Cashmeer. Being hungry, and concluding
the princess was so also, he alighted in that wood, in an open
part of it, and left the princess on a grassy spot, close to a
rivulet of clear fresh water.

During the Hindoo's absence, the princess of Bengal, who knew
that she was in the power of a base ravisher, whose violence she
dreaded, thought of escaping from him, and seeking out for some
sanctuary. But as she had eaten scarcely any thing on her arrival
at the palace, was so faint, that she could not execute her
design, but was forced to abandon it and stay where she was,
without any other resource than her courage, and a firm
resolution rather to suffer death than be unfaithful to the
prince of Persia. When the Hindoo r