on.

"Arabic!" said the emir. "Hebrew. You are looking upon the seal of the
great Solomon himself and that is the prison house of one of the two
evil genii whom the great king confined in bottles and cast into the
sea. In that collection of chronicles which the Feringhis style the
Arabian Nights, you have read of the fisherman who found a bottle in
his net and opened it to see a quantity of dark vapor issue forth,
which, assuming great proportions, presently took form, coalesced into
the gigantic figure of a terrible genii, who announced to his
terrified liberator that during his captivity, he had sworn to kill
whomsoever let him out of the bottle. This well-known occurrence and
stock example of the necessity of being careful of the possible
results of one's acts, is so familiar to you as to make its further
relation an impertinence on my part. Suffice it to say, in cause you
have forgotten a minor detail, there was another genii and another
bottle in the sea beside the one found by the fisherman.

"The second bottle in some unknown way came into the possession of
Prince Houssein, brother of my great-grandfather's great-grandfather,
Nourreddin. This latter prince having need of a certain amount of
coin--which was very scarce in Arabia at that time and of great
purchasing power, trade being carried on by barter--sent to his
brother a request for a loan. The country was in a very disturbed
state at that time and Houssein dispatched two messengers at an
interval of a day apart. The first of these was robbed and killed. He
bore a letter, concealed in his saddle, and the money. The second
messenger came in entire safety with that bottle, for no one could be
desirous of trifling with anything so fraught with danger as that
prison house of the terrible genii. What was the purport of this
strange gift has never been guessed. The letter borne by the murdered
man doubtless explained. Houssein himself perished of plague before
Nourreddin could learn from him."

Mr. Middleton sat holding the enchanted bottle very gingerly. If he
had not feared to give offence to the emir, he would have declined the
gift, for while not for one moment did he dream that a demoniac
presence fretted inside that shining copper, he did believe that it
contained some explosive, or what would be more probable, some
mephitic substance that gave off a deadly vapor. So, fully resolved to
throw the bottle into the river and being very heedful of Achmed's
in