he would give, the king the slave girl and her
son. The king was overjoyed. He sent for his Grand Wazeer and told him
that he was going on one of his lonely expeditions, and that the
Wazeer must invent some excuse to account for his absence. Next he
disguised himself as an ordinary messenger, mounted a swift camel, and
sped away to the place where the slave girl was to be handed over to
him. When he got there he gave the messengers who brought her a letter
of thanks and a handsome present for their master and rewards for
themselves; and then without delay he took the poor woman and her tiny
boy-baby up on to his camel and rode off to a wild desert.

After riding for a day and a night, almost without stopping, he came
to a great cave where he made the woman dismount, and, taking her and
the baby into the cave, he drew his sword and with one blow chopped
her head off. But although his anger made him cruel enough for
anything so dreadful, the king felt that he could not turn his great
sword on the helpless baby, who he was sure must soon die in this
solitary place without its mother; so he left it in the cave where it
was, and, mounting his camel, rode home as fast as he could.

Now, in a small village in his kingdom there lived an old widow who
had no children or relations of any kind. She made her living mostly
by selling the milk of a flock of goats; but she was very, very poor,
and not very strong, and often used to wonder how she would live if
she got too weak or ill to attend to her goats. Every morning she
drove the goats out into the desert to graze on the shrubs and bushes
which grew there, and every evening they came home of themselves to be
milked and to be shut up safely for the night.

One evening the old woman was astonished to find that her very best
nanny-goat returned without a drop of milk. She thought that some
naughty boy or girl was playing a trick upon her and had caught the
goat on its way home and stolen all the milk. But when evening after
evening the goat remained almost dry she determined to find out who
the thief was. So the next day she followed the goats at a distance
and watched them while they grazed. At length, in the afternoon, the
old woman noticed this particular nanny-goat stealing off by herself
away from the herd and she at once went after her. On and on the goat
walked for some way, and then disappeared into a cave in the rocks.
The old woman followed the goat into the cave and th