low who carried a long
piece of wood on his shoulder, and Haroun would have been struck full
in the face with it had he not stepped quickly on one side to avoid it.
But the man, although he passed close by him, neither looked at nor
spoke to him, and seemed altogether unconscious of his presence.

It now first dawned upon the Caliph that the strange and invisible
substance which he had picked up in the dungeon, and which he still
carried in his hand, possessed indeed the marvellous property of
rendering him entirely invisible to other men. This accounted for the
remarkable panic of his jailer, who, when he looked into, and even
entered his dungeon, failed to see him; it explained why the soldiers
had permitted him to leave the building unmolested, why the horseman
had nearly ridden over him, and why the clown who had just passed had,
without knowing it, nearly brained him with his load.

Much comforted and strengthened by the discovery of this wonderful
exemption from observation which he now enjoyed, he walked on briskly,
till the sun, being now high in the heavens, and the heat very great,
he came to a village, and entering boldly an inn there, and passing
through into an empty apartment, he lay down upon a not very soft divan
he found in it, and straightway fell asleep.

The Caliph being tired with the walk and the excitement of the morning,
slept so long and soundly that it was night and quite dark when he
awoke. And being even then but half awake he did not realize that he
was no longer in the castle-dungeon; therefore, perceiving that it was
not yet light, he turned over and went to sleep again. In a few hours'
time, in the midst of a dream that he was in his own palace at Bagdad
and presiding at some great feast, he awoke once more, saw that it was
beginning to be light, remembered where he was, and found himself
exceedingly hungry. Going, therefore, very quietly into the next
apartment, he found the innkeeper lying there soundly asleep, and on
the table the remains of a substantial supper. At once seating
himself, the Caliph was not long in finishing the repast and assuaging
the pangs of hunger.

Having all his life been used to eat and drink whatever he required,
without any thought of payment, it is very likely that he might have
eaten his meal and departed without the least concern or thought of the
fact that he possessed at that moment nothing to pay for it. However,
it so fell out that he was enab