nto an ape. "Between this fellow and old
Fakrash," he reflected ruefully, at this point, "I seem likely to have a
fairly lively time of it!"

He read on till he reached the memorable encounter between the King's
daughter and Jarjarees, who presented himself "in a most hideous shape,
with hands like winnowing forks, and legs like masts, and eyes like
burning torches"--which was calculated to unnerve the stoutest novice.
The Efreet began by transforming himself from a lion to a scorpion, upon
which the Princess became a serpent; then he changed to an eagle, and
she to a vulture; he to a black cat, and she to a cock; he to a fish,
and she to a larger fish still.

"If Fakrash can shove me through all that without a fatal hitch
somewhere," Ventimore told himself, "I shall be agreeably disappointed
in him," But, after reading a few more lines, he cheered up. For the
Efreet finished as a flame, and the Princess as a "body of fire." "And
when we looked towards him," continued the narrator, "we perceived that
he had become a heap of ashes."

"Come," said Horace to himself, "that puts Jarjarees out of action, any
way! The odd thing is that Fakrash should never have heard of it."

But, as he saw on reflection, it was not so very odd, after all, as the
incident had probably happened after the Jinnee had been consigned to
his brass bottle, where intelligence of any kind would be most unlikely
to reach him.

He worked steadily through the whole of the second volume and part of
the third; but, although he picked up a certain amount of information
upon Oriental habits and modes of thought and speech which might come in
useful later, it was not until he arrived at the 24th Chapter of the
third volume that his interest really revived.

For the 24th Chapter contained "The Story of Seyf-el-Mulook and
Bedeea-el-Jemal," and it was only natural that he should be anxious to
know all that there was to know concerning the antecedents of one who
might be his _fiancee_ before long. He read eagerly.

Bedeea, it appeared, was the lovely daughter of Shahyal, one of the
Kings of the Believing Jann; her father--not Fakrash himself, as the
Jinnee had incorrectly represented--had offered her in marriage to no
less a personage than King Solomon himself, who, however, had preferred
the Queen of Sheba. Seyf, the son of the King of Egypt, afterwards fell
desperately in love with Bedeea, but she and her grandmother both
declared that between mankind a