ur design, should invent this method
of revenge. Wherefore, when the pretended slave was brought before me,
and she repeated not the words that I had taught her, I was assured
that it was the enchanter in disguise, and waited till, by prostrating
himself before my lord, he gave me an opportunity of destroying the
life of the chief of thine enemies."

The Sultan of India again embraced his faithful Vizier; and as soon as
the eye of morn was opened in the east, the armies of Ahubal beheld
the enchanter Tasnar's head fixed on a pole in the front of the
Sultan's army.

The Prince Ahubal, rising with the earliest dawn of the morning, went
forward to the front of his troops, and there, at a small distance,
saw the hideous features of the enchanter Tasnar already blackening in
the sun. Fear immediately took possession of his soul; and he ran,
with tears in his eyes, and hid himself, till the sun went down, in
his pavilion.

The Vizier Horam, perceiving the approach of the sun, would have led
on the Sultan's troops to a second attack; but Misnar commanded him to
forbear, that his army might rest one day after their fatigues.

The great distress of the enchanters, and their unexpected deaths,
alarmed the rest of that wicked race; and Ahaback and Desra, seeing
that no one enchanter had succeeded against the Sultan, resolved to
join their forces; and while one led a powerful army to Ahubal's
assistance from the east, the other raised the storms of war and
rebellion on the western confines of the Sultan's empire.

In the meantime, the two armies of the Sultan and Ahubal continued
inactive, till an express arrived that Ahaback was leading the
strength of nine thousand squadrons against their Sultan, and that
Desra was travelling over the plains of Embracan, with three thousand
elephants and a hundred thousand troops from the western provinces.

The Sultan instantly resolved to attack Ahubal before these succours
could arrive; but the Vizier Horam fell at his feet, and besought him
not to hazard his army, but rather to recruit and strengthen it.

This advice, though quite contrary to the opinion of Misnar, was yet
so strongly urged by the Vizier, that the Sultan gave up his better
judgment to the opinion of Horam; and, when every one expected to be
called forth to action, the Vizier gave orders in the camp for
recruits to be sought after, and went himself to the north of Delhi to
raise a second army for his master's service.