of this misfortune, and not
you. Go and find me the dress of a dervish, but beware of saying it is
for me."

At a short distance from the country house, a convent of dervishes was
situated, and the superior, or scheih, was the doorkeeper's friend. So
by means of a false story made up on the spur of the moment, it was
easy enough to get hold of a dervish's dress, which the prince at once
put on, instead of his own. Disguised like this and concealing about
him a box of pearls and diamonds he had intended as a present to the
princess, he left the house at nightfall, uncertain where he should go,
but firmly resolved not to return without her.

Meanwhile the Indian had turned the horse in such a direction that,
before many hours had passed, it had entered a wood close to the
capital of the kingdom of Cashmere. Feeling very hungry, and supposing
that the princess also might be in want of food, he brought his steed
down to the earth, and left the princess in a shady place, on the banks
of a clear stream.

At first, when the princess had found herself alone, the idea had
occurred to her of trying to escape and hide herself. But as she had
eaten scarcely anything since she had left Bengal, she felt she was too
weak to venture far, and was obliged to abandon her design. On the
return of the Indian with meats of various kinds, she began to eat
voraciously, and soon had regained sufficient courage to reply with
spirit to his insolent remarks. Goaded by his threats she sprang to
her feet, calling loudly for help, and luckily her cries were heard by
a troop of horsemen, who rode up to inquire what was the matter.

Now the leader of these horsemen was the Sultan of Cashmere, returning
from the chase, and he instantly turned to the Indian to inquire who he
was, and whom he had with him. The Indian rudely answered that it was
his wife, and there was no occasion for anyone else to interfere
between them.

The princess, who, of course, was ignorant of the rank of her
deliverer, denied altogether the Indian's story. "My lord," she cried,
"whoever you may be, put no faith in this impostor. He is an
abominable magician, who has this day torn me from the Prince of
Persia, my destined husband, and has brought me here on this enchanted
horse." She would have continued, but her tears choked her, and the
Sultan of Cashmere, convinced by her beauty and her distinguished air
of the truth of her tale, ordered his followers to cut of