id she.

He bent him down to look. She came out, and she put her two hands at
his back, and cast him in.

"Be thou there," said she. "If I go to be married, thou art not the
man; but the man who did each exploit that has been done, and, if he
chooses, him will I have."

Away she went with the rider of the little black horse to the wedding.

And at the end of three years after that, so it was that he first
remembered the black horse or where he left him.

He got up and went out, and he was very sorry for his neglect of the
black horse. He found him just where he left him.

"Good luck to you, gentleman," said the horse. "You seem as if you had
got something that you like better than me."

"I have not got that, and I won't; but it came over me to forget you,"
said he.

"I don't mind," said the horse, "it will make no difference. Raise
your sword and smite off my head."

"Fortune will not allow that I should do that," said he.

"Do it instantly, or I will do it to you," said the horse.

So the lad drew his sword and smote off the horse's head; then he
lifted his two palms and uttered a doleful cry.

What should he hear behind him but "All hail, my brother-in-law!"?

He looked behind him, and there was the finest man he ever set eyes
upon.

"What set you weeping for the black horse?" said he.

"This," said the lad, "that there never was born of man or beast a
creature in this world that I was fonder of."

"Would you take me for him?" said the stranger.

"If I could think you the horse I would; but if not, I would rather
have the horse," said the rider.

"I am the black horse," said the lad, "and if I were not, how should
you have all these things that you went to seek in my father's house.
Since I went under spells, many a man have I ran at before you met me.
They had but one word amongst them: they could not keep me, nor manage
me, and they never kept me a couple of days. But when I fell in with
you, you kept me till the time ran out that was to come from the
spells. And now you shall go home with me, and we will make a wedding
in my father's house."

_Truth's Triumph_

Several hundred years ago there was a certain Rajah who had twelve
wives, but no children, and though he caused many prayers to be said,
and presents made in temples far and near, never a son nor a daughter
had he. Now this Rajah had a Wuzeer who was a very, very wise old man,
and it came to pass that one day, when he was tr