ly blue raiment with gold-work broidery and a lovely circlet of gold,
and gold bracelets set with stones of turquoise, and a basket of gold
woven wire, wherein were toys, wondrous ones--soldiers that cut off each
other's heads and put them on again, springing antelopes, palm-trees that
turned to fountains, and others; and lo! a book in red binding, with
figures on it and clasps of gold, a great book! So I clapped my hands
joyfully, crying, 'The old beggar has done it!' and robed myself in the
dress, and ran forth to tell Ravaloke. As I ran by a window looking on
the inner court, I saw below a crowd of all the slaves of Ravaloke round
one that was seeking to escape from them, and 'twas Kadrab with a camel's
hump on his back, and a broad brown plaister over it, the wretch howling,
peering across his shoulder, and trying to bolt from his burden, as a
horse that would run from his rider. Then I saw that Kadrab also had his
wish, his camel's hump, and thought, 'The old beggar, what was he but a
Genie?' Surely Ravaloke caressed me when he heard of the adventure, and
what had befallen Kadrab was the jest of the city; but for me I spared
little time away from that book, and studied in it incessantly the ways
and windings of magic, till I could hold communication with Genii, and
wield charms to summon them, and utter spells that subdue them,
discovering the haunts of talismans that enthral Afrites and are powerful
among men. There was that Kadrab coming to me daily to call out in the
air for the old beggarman to rid him of his hump; and he would waste
hours looking up into the sky moodily for him, and cursing the five toes
of his foot, for he doubted not the two beggars were one, and that he was
punished for the kick, and lamented it direly, saying in the thick of his
whimperings, 'I'd give the foot that did it to be released from my hump,
O my fair mistress.' So I pitied him, and made a powder and a spell, and
my first experiment in magic was to relieve Kadrab of his hump, and I
succeeded in loosening it, and it came away from him, and sank into the
ground of the garden where we stood. So I told Kadrab to say nothing of
this, but the idle-pated fellow blabbed it over the city, and it came to
the ears of Goorelka. Then she sent for me to visit her, and by the
advice of Ravaloke I went, and she fondled me, and sought to get at the
depth of my knowledge by a spell that tieth every faculty save the
tongue, and it is the spell of vain