alace began to shake,
and seemed ready to fall, with a hideous noise like thunder,
accompanied with flashes of lightning, and alternate darkness.
This terrible noise in a moment dispelled the fumes of my wine,
and made me sensible, but too late, of the folly I had committed.
"Princess," cried I, "what means all this?" She answered, without
any concern for her own misfortune, "Alas! you are undone, if you
do not fly immediately."

I followed her advice, but my fears were so great, that I forgot
my hatchet and cords. I had scarcely reached the stairs by which
I had descended, when the enchanted palace opened at once, and
made a passage for the genie: he asked the princess in great
anger, "What has happened to you, and why did you call me?" "A
violent spasm," said the princess, "made me fetch this bottle
which you see here, out of which I drank twice or thrice, and by
mischance made a false step, and fell upon the talisman, which is
broken, and that is all."

At this answer, the furious genie told her, "You are a false
woman, and speak not the truth; how came that axe and those cords
there?" "I never saw them till this moment," said the princess.
"Your coming in such an impetuous manner has, it may be, forced
them up in some place as you came along, and so brought them
hither without your knowing it."

The genie made no other answer but what was accompanied with
reproaches and blows, of which I heard the noise. I could not
endure to hear the pitiful cries of the princess so cruelly
abused. I had already taken off the suit she had presented to me,
and put on my own, which I had laid on the stairs the day before,
when I came out of the bagnio: I made haste upstairs, the more
distracted with sorrow and compassion, as I had been the cause of
so great a misfortune; and by sacrificing the fairest princess on
earth to the barbarity of a merciless genie, I was becoming the
most criminal and ungrateful of mankind. "It is true," said I,
"she has been a prisoner these twenty-five years; but, liberty
excepted she wanted nothing that could make her happy. My folly
has put an end to her happiness, and brought upon her the cruelty
of an unmerciful devil." I let down the trap-door, covered it
again with earth, and returned to the city with a burden of wood,
which I bound up without knowing what I did, so great was my
trouble and sorrow.

My landlord, the tailor, was very much rejoiced to see me: "Your
absence," said he, "has disqu