ignorance. I did not know that this
lady had a buffalo to her sweetheart: command me in anything you
please, I give you my oath that I am ready to obey you." "By
death," replied the genie; "if thou goest out from hence, or
speakest a word till the sun rises, I will crush thy head to
pieces. I warn thee to obey, for if thou hast the impudence to
return, it shall cost thee thy life." When the genie had done
speaking, he transformed himself into the shape of a man, took
hump-back by the legs, and after having set him against the wall
with his head downwards, "If thou stir," said he, "before the sun
rise, as I have told thee already, I will take thee by the heels
again, and dash thy head in a thousand pieces against the wall."

To return to Buddir ad Deen. Prompted by the genie and the
presence of the perie, he returned to the hall, from whence he
slips into the bride-chamber, where he sat down, expecting the
success of his adventure. After a while the bride arrived,
conducted by an old matron, who came no farther than the door,
without looking in to see whether it were hump-back or another
that was there, and then retired.

The beautiful bride was agreeably surprised to find instead of
hump-back a handsome youth, who gracefully addressed her. "What!
my dear friend," said she, "by your being here at this time of
night you must be my husband's comrade?" "No, madam," said Buddir
ad Deen, "I am of another quality than that ugly hump-back."
"But," said she, "you do not consider that you speak degradingly
of my husband." "He your husband," replied he: "can you retain
those thoughts so long? Be convinced of your mistake, for so much
beauty must never be sacrificed to the most contemptible of
mankind. It is I that am the happy mortal for whom it is
reserved. The sultan had a mind to make himself merry, by putting
this trick upon the vizier your father, but he chose me to be
your real husband. You might have observed how the ladies, the
musicians, the dancers, your women, and all the servants of your
family, were pleased with this comedy. We have sent hump-back to
his stable again."

At this discourse the vizier's daughter (who was more like one
dead than alive when she came into the bride-chamber) put on a
gay air, which made her so handsome, that Buddir ad Deen was
charmed with her graces.

"I did not expect," said she, "to meet with so pleasing a
surprise; and I had condemned myself to live unhappy all my days.
But my go