ought to
have sent him to punishment without hearing him! by listening to his
stories, I exposed my glory, my safety, and the peace of my subjects!
Justify yourselves if you can: you have liberty to speak."

In vain did the King endeavour to make these guilty ministers open
their mouths. They were seized with a mortal coldness; their eyes,
fixed on the ground, could not be drawn from it; their lips quivered;
their feeble limbs bent under their knees and seemed ready to fail
them.

"Speak," said Aladin to them in his turn: "where now is that
attachment to the rules of justice which rendered you so eloquent
against the son of a chief of the robbers, whose mere mistake was in
your eyes a crime which ought to be expiated by the most infamous
punishment? Are your courage and your zeal for the glory of the
kingdom annihilated? Guilt weighs you down, remorse preys upon you,
and you are confounded with shame."

"Your sentence, already written in heaven," resumed Bohetzad, "is
about to be executed on earth. On the scaffold where my son was to
suffer let these ten wretches finish their days, and let the public
criers announce this decree to the people."

The order was instantly executed.

Bohetzad then leading back his son to the palace, continually renewed
the tender proofs of his affection.

"Ah, dear son!" would he say, "how were you so little intimidated by
the death which threatened you as to recollect all the circumstances
you related? Whence have you drawn those numerous maxims and judicious
reflections which can only be the fruit of experience and study?"

"Sire," replied Aladin, "it was not I who spoke, but Heaven which
inspired me. In my infancy I had not been neglected; and since the
happy moment in which I had the good fortune to be placed near your
Majesty, I have been perfected in wisdom. The woman, whom I took for
my mother, early directed my attention to the divine Koran, by whose
sacred precepts, she told me, I ought to regulate my conduct. And that
which will appear most extraordinary to you, sire, is, that her
husband, led away by the force of habit, brought up in guilt almost
from his infancy, and not hesitating in the least to plunder caravans,
should yet be afraid of breaking his word. He was a faithful husband,
a kind master to his slaves, to me more than an affectionate father,
and of all men the least greedy of plunder. He cherished me; and as at
that time I was not so well informed as I am at pr