o uttered no impatient exclamations, but
whose countenance bore an expression of satisfaction and interest far
enough removed from any kind of irritability or ill-humour.

They had wandered in this way for a long time through many of the
least-frequented and least-interesting thoroughfares of the city, the
Grand Vizier scarcely knowing whether he were more bored by the walk or
astonished at the evident satisfaction of his master, when suddenly the
Caliph stood still, leaning against the wall of a house and staring
intently at the blank wall of the house immediately opposite.

After they had stood thus for some minutes, the Caliph looking fixedly
and with evidently increasing interest and excitement at the dead wall
opposite, Giafer became seriously alarmed, fearing that his master had
either lost his wits or was going to have a fit. He was, in fact, so
much frightened by the extraordinary behaviour of the Caliph, which had
continued all the evening, that he continued to stand beside him and
watch him, himself motionless and speechless.

All at once the Caliph, still gazing intently before him, grasped
Giafer by the arm and whispered to him as though others were present--

"Go, take Mesrur with you; go round that house, down the turning
yonder, and arrest them as they come out of the gate."

For a moment Giafer, who seriously believed that the Caliph had become
demented, hesitated. But the habit of obedience prevailed, and putting
his hand to his head, the usual sign of implicit devotion to the royal
will, he beckoned Mesrur, whose figure at a little distance from them
was the only living object visible in the street, and they disappeared
together down the narrow turning which the Caliph had indicated.

We must now explain what it was that caused the Caliph to remain so
long gazing at the house before the outer wall of which he was standing.

As he came along the street he saw in the garden of the house, which
lay immediately behind the high wall in front of him, a sight very
different from any of those which had hitherto been disclosed to him.

Lying on the grass beneath a wide spreading tree in the middle of the
garden was the apparently lifeless form of a very beautiful young lady.
Her clothes were of the finest materials, and her neck, arms, and
ankles were adorned with magnificent jewellery, composed of gold,
diamonds, pearls, and other precious stones. Standing beside her, and
looking down upon her with a