ish of which Diafer had spoken to him, and which
she presented to him from the Governor of Dioul, adding, that he had
just sent it as a present to his Majesty in order to obtain a life
which he had deserved to lose, his faithful subjects having taken him
in arms against the Sultan. The third, a poniard, very meanly adorned,
which she begged him to accept.

"The others," continued she, "are either worn out (for you know, my
lord they only last for a certain time), or have been destroyed by
different accidents."

"Why did the Governor of Dioul," resumed Nourgehan, "conceal from
Diafer that Seidel-Beckir was the maker of that which he possessed?"

"He was ignorant of it, my lord," interrupted Damake; "and perhaps,
ashamed of not knowing it, he feigned it to be a secret. It is the
habit of men to cover their ignorance by an affectation of mystery."

"But what is the virtue of this talisman that you offer me?" said
Nourgehan, as he accepted the poniard.

"I will inform you of it, my lord," said Damake, "at the same time
that I give you an account of what I have been able to learn
concerning the fish. It may be about three thousand years since there
appeared, in the part of Asia which we inhabit, a man named Houna, who
was so great that he was surnamed Seidel-Beckir. He was a sage who
possessed in perfection all those talents which acquire a general
veneration. The science of talismans he possessed in so eminent a
degree, that by their means he commanded the stars and the
constellations. Unhappily, his writings are lost, and therefore no
talismans like his can now be made. Antinmour, King of Hindostan,
having found means to form a friendship with him, Seidel-Beckir, in
return for his kindness and some small services that he had done him,
made him a present of that little fish of which your Vizier gave you
an account. It always remained in the treasury of Antinmour as long as
his family existed. One of the ancestors of the Governor of Dioul
finding himself the Vizier of the last of that race, when the family
was extinct by those revolutions which the history of the Indies
relates at length, and which are universally known, seized upon this
curiosity, and his successors have kept it with the utmost care till
this time. Not only does this talisman bring back whatever is fallen
into a river, or the sea, to the person to whom it belongs, but if you
indicate to it anything to be brought out of that element, it goes in
search