could have been capable of virtuous sentiments, this phenomenon would
have contradicted experience, and even proved it deceitful. I will
here venture to recall to your Majesty a fable of our ancestors which
tradition has preserved to us:

"In ancient times a young wolf was put to school, to endeavour, by
instruction, to correct his natural propensity to voracity. His
master, in order to teach him to read, transcribed, in large
characters, some letters of the alphabet, and attempted to make him
understand these signs. But instead of reading K L S, as it was
written, the savage animal read fluently Kid, Lamb, Sheep. He was
governed by instinct, and his nature was incorrigible. The son of a
robber is in the very same situation: vice is coeval with his
existence. From the beginning he is an infected mass, which it is
impossible to purify. But what astonishes me most, sire, is that such
a criminal should have survived one moment the insult he has offered
to the Crown."

These remonstrances of the Second Vizier having enraged the mind of
the monarch still more, he ordered the prisoner to be brought in
chains into his presence. He was obeyed.

Aladin appeared. The King, doing violence to the sentiments which
moved him in his favour, addressed him with the greatest severity.

"Traitor!" said he to him, "nothing can hereafter delay your
punishment; and the world shall be informed of your crime and my
vengeance!"

At the same time he gave the executioner the signal of death.

"Sire," interrupted Aladin, whose steady and modest countenance was
the genuine proof of courage and innocence, "my life is in the hands
of your Majesty; but I conjure you still not to hasten my death. He
who thinks only of the present, without reference to the future,
exposes himself to as bitter a repentance as that which the merchant
felt, whose history I have heard. He, on the contrary, who looks into
futurity, has a right one day to congratulate himself on his prudence,
as it happened to the son of this merchant."

Bohetzad, in spite of himself, felt his curiosity excited anew, and
was desirous to hear the story which Aladin wanted to relate to him.

"I will consent," said the monarch, "to hear the adventures of this
merchant; but it is the last instance of complaisance I shall show
you."

"May it please your beneficent Majesty," returned Aladin, "order this
man, who holds the sabre above my head, to be gone. I think I see the
angel of death