or the
day when the vase came home he learned that his loved sultana plotted
against his life.

"'After many years, in his turn came to rule your illustrious father,
Haroun the Wise, and took the vase. He, the great king, who never
travelled without a hundred scholars in his train, who built a school
for poor children beside every mosque, he the magnificent in war and
peace, in all his long reign enriched the vase by two pearls; the day of
his coronation and the day of his death; the day before he saw Marida
the Beautiful and the day he forgot her forever. Now, Commander of the
Faithful, according to my charge I deliver the vase to you, with hope
that your joys may exhaust the sea of pearls.'

"Hearing, Al-Mamoun fell into profound musing.

"'Vizier,' he said, 'I cannot mark the day I began to reign, who loved
my father and take his place with tears, and the day of my death no man
knows. But, by the favor of Allah, I will add one pearl to the vase
while I live.'

"The next morning many workmen came to the palace. Around the fairest
part of the garden they reared a lofty wall, within its circle they
placed everything which the king might desire. On the day appointed, in
that spot assembled his favorite musicians, the scholars in whose
conversation he most delighted, the captains whose faces reminded him of
victories and the poets whose words fell like drops from the spring that
bubbles before Allah's throne in Paradise. Only, because women had
troubled the days of Al-Mansor and Haroun, no woman was admitted.

"With pomp, music and rejoicing, Al-Mamoun moved at sunrise to the
garden of delights that was to shelter him from the world for one day.
But, as his foot touched the threshold, a great cry of lamentation went
through the palace.

"'What now?' demanded the king, halting.

"A guard of the serail answered, his brow in the dust:

"'Lord, the sultana has drowned herself in the Court of Fountains,
because of grief that your day of perfect happiness could be passed
without her.'

"Then Al-Mamoun drew back his foot and returned to the palace, knowing
that from him the golden vase would claim no pearls."

"That is all?" Isabel asked expectantly.

"What more could there be, mademoiselle?"

"There might be a moral," Corrie suggested, leaning his folded arms on
the table, his interested eyes fixed upon the story-teller.

"When I read the Arabian Nights, I found out that Oriental tales have no
morals," dryly ob