e had spoken. We had barely reached it when he joined
us himself, carrying a small vessel of water, a pickaxe, and a little
bag containing plaster.

With the pickaxe he at once began to destroy the empty sepulchre in the
middle of the tomb. One by one he took the stones and piled them up in
a corner. When he had knocked down the whole sepulchre he proceeded to
dig at the earth, and beneath where the sepulchre had been I saw a
trap-door. He raised the door and I caught sight of the top of a spiral
staircase; then he said, turning to the lady, "Madam, this is the way
that will lead you down to the spot which I told you of."

The lady did not answer, but silently descended the staircase, the
prince following her. At the top, however, he looked at me. "My
cousin," he exclaimed, "I do not know how to thank you for your
kindness. Farewell."

"What do you mean?" I cried. "I don't understand."

"No matter," he replied, "go back by the path that you came."

He would say no more, and, greatly puzzled, I returned to my room in
the palace and went to bed. When I woke, and considered my adventure,
I thought that I must have been dreaming, and sent a servant to ask if
the prince was dressed and could see me. But on hearing that he had
not slept at home I was much alarmed, and hastened to the cemetery,
where, unluckily, the tombs were all so alike that I could not discover
which was the one I was in search of, though I spent four days in
looking for it.

You must know that all this time the king, my uncle, was absent on a
hunting expedition, and as no one knew when he would be back, I at last
decided to return home, leaving the ministers to make my excuses. I
longed to tell them what had become of the prince, about whose fate
they felt the most dreadful anxiety, but the oath I had sworn kept me
silent.

On my arrival at my father's capital, I was astonished to find a large
detachment of guards drawn up before the gate of the palace; they
surrounded me directly I entered. I asked the officers in command the
reason of this strange behaviour, and was horrified to learn that the
army had mutinied and put to death the king, my father, and had placed
the grand-vizir on the throne. Further, that by his orders I was
placed under arrest.

Now this rebel vizir had hated me from my boy-hood, because once, when
shooting at a bird with a bow, I had shot out his eye by accident. Of
course I not only sent a servant at once to