tely Jussuf called his slaves to him, who were standing in the
distance in earnest expectation, and ordered them to carry the dead
bodies to the melon. But they refused, certainly with humble excuses,
but still with steadfast decision.

"In the name of all natural things," said they, "we will prove to thee
our certain obedience; but do not ask us to make ourselves unclean, or
to meddle with such unnatural appearances."

He represented to them quietly that he could not place both the dead
bodies in the hollow melon, and that one of them must help him--that
what he ventured they might also venture; but they denied
perseveringly, and no one appeared ready to lend a helping hand. Angry
at their obstinacy, Jussuf was on the point of chastising them with
the flat part of his sabre-blade, when one of the slaves called out,

"Hold, hold, dear master! the dead bodies are no longer there!"

They had certainly vanished; and when he looked on the ground where
they had lain, he discovered in the dust a dead wasp and a dead bee.

"See, see!" said he, in perfect astonishment; "would not any one
believe that all those things were only a delusion of the mind? If the
great melon did not lie there now, I should be inclined to think that
I had, in a mad fancy, taken the bees and wasps for large figures of
men."

At these words, he turned to the side where the melon had been, and,
lo! that had also disappeared. Approaching nearer, he found in its
place the little melon again, just as he had picked it during his
walk. In its side he discovered a small four-angled opening. Then he
went quickly back, fetched the two dead insects, and put them through
the aperture into the melon.

"It may now be as it may," said he to himself. "I promised them to
bury their dead bodies in the melon, and I fulfil this promise."

"Now, you will not wish to eat any of this enchanted melon?" inquired
one of the slaves; and as Jussuf shook his head in the negative, and
at once entered his tent, the slave gave the melon a kick with his
foot, so that it rolled all the way down the hill, and fell below into
the river that flowed there. The waves swept over it.

The night passed tranquilly. At first, Jussuf could not get any sleep,
for the events of wonder had so stirred up his soul. At last fatigue
conquered, and he slumbered till near morning.

In the commencement of his journey he had made an arrangement that
four of his slaves should watch every night alt