But the Sultan's pet
damsel chose for herself none of these things; to the amazement of the
Padishah, she only asked for this simple black pen.

Mahmoud was astonished, but he granted the damsel her wish, and making
light of it, he gave her the writing-reed which was fashioned out of a
simple bamboo cane, and was nothing very remarkable even at that.

The odalisk took the pen away with her to her room, and waited from
morning to night to see it move. But the pen calmly rested where she
had placed it all day long and all night too, and the odalisk began to
be sorry that she had not rather selected for herself some other more
precious thing instead of the object of her curiosity; but one
evening, when the Sultan was visiting her in her flowery chamber, and
they were holding sweet converse together, they suddenly heard in the
room, where nobody was present but themselves, a faint sound as if
some one were writing in great haste, the scratching of a pen on the
extended parchment was distinctly audible.

They both looked in the direction of the sound, and words failed them
in their astonishment, for behold! the writing-reed was half raised in
the air, just as when one is holding it in his hand, and it seemed to
be writing of its own accord on the parchment extended beneath it.

The damsel trembled for terror, while the Sultan, who was a stranger
alike to fear or superstition, imagining that perhaps a spider had got
into the upper part of the reed, and consequently made it move up and
down, and anxious to convince his favorite thereof, approached the
table, and took up the pen in order to shake the spider out of it.
But there was nothing at all there, and the pen went on writing of its
own accord.

The Sultan himself began to be astonished at this phenomenon. What the
pen seemed to be so diligently writing remained a hidden script,
however, for its point had not been dipped in ink. Wishing, therefore,
to put it to the test, the Sultan dipped the point of the reed in a
little box full of that red balsamic salve with which Turkish girls
are wont to paint their lips, and then placed it on a smooth, clean
sheet of parchment, whereupon it again arose, and wrote in bright,
plainly intelligible letters these words, "Mahmoud! Mahmoud!"

The Sultan's own heart began to beat when he saw his own name written
before his eyes, and he inquired with something like consternation,
"What dost thou want of me?"

The pen immediately wro