gdine's beauty, and to felicitate her
upon the prospect of being bride to her own son, the captain, whose
manifold accomplishments she most vigorously extolled. Smaragdine,
after a little while, began to dry her tears, and by degrees affected
to be quite comforted. She even went so far as to say that she
regretted one thing more than all the rest, and this was that she
could not take a bath, and be ready to give the captain a reception
more worthy of his rank and character.

"Ah, the bath! the bath!" cries the old woman, "you are quite in the
right; there is no comfort in this world like the bath; but it is a
luxury I never enjoy, for I have nobody about me to shampoo me."

"Here am I," says Smaragdine; "allow me to attend on you the first,
and then you will do the like good office to me."

The bargain was soon struck. The bath was got into order, and the old
woman, the first time for many years, entered it. Smaragdine kept the
water very hot, and rubbed and scrubbed the old dame so, that she was
quite in transports, and at length fell fast asleep under the pleasing
influence. While she slept Smaragdine took possession of the clothes
and arms of the murdered cavalier, mounted his horse, and galloped
from the cavern, without having the least notion whither.

When morning broke she found herself in an uncultivated country,
destitute of any marks of human habitation. She ate some roots and
fruits, allowed her horse to graze under the trees, and so proceeded
all the day.

On the eleventh morning she descried, in the valley before her, a
noble and beautifully situated town; and behold, as she drew nearer to
the gates, there came from thence a multitude of horsemen, who
surrounded her upon the highway, threw themselves on the ground before
the hoofs of her horse, kissed her garment, and hailed her as the
Sultan sent to them by the especial care of Heaven. Each man clapped
his hands, and exclaimed, _Allah jausur es Sultaun_![18] that is to
say, God give victory to the Sultan, King of the world--blessed be thy
coming!

[Footnote 18: This is a cry which still survives in Egypt--the very
cry with which the inhabitants of that country welcomed successively,
in 1800-1, the Generals of the French, the Turkish, and the English
armies.]

What may all this mean? thinks the bewildered girl to herself. She
asked the question aloud, and the Lord High Chamberlain hastened to
answer it. "Know, sire," said he, "that when the Soverei