ss,
"my resolution is fixed, and you must allow me to execute it. However,
as events are uncertain, and I may fail in this undertaking, all I can
do is to leave you this knife. It has a peculiar property. If when you
pull it out of the sheath it is clean as it is now, it will be a sign
that I am alive; but if you find it stained with blood, then you may
believe me to be dead."

The princess could prevail nothing more with Bahman. He bade adieu to
her and Prince Perviz for the last time, and rode away. When he got
into the road, he never turned to the right hand nor to the left, but
went directly forward toward India. The twentieth day he perceived on
the roadside a very singular old man, who sat under a tree some small
distance from a thatched house, which was his retreat from the
weather.

His eyebrows were as white as snow, as was also his beard, which was
so long as to cover his mouth, while it reached down to his feet. The
nails of his hands and feet were grown to an immense length; a flat
broad umbrella covered his head. He wore no clothes, but only a mat
thrown round his body.

This old man was a dervish, for many years retired from the world, and
devoted to contemplation, so that at last he became what we have
described.

Prince Bahman, who had been all that morning expecting to meet some
one who could give him information of the place he was in search of,
stopped when he came near the dervish, alighted, in conformity to the
directions which the devout woman had given the Princess Perie-zadeh,
and, leading his horse by the bridle, advanced toward him, and
saluting him, said, "God prolong your days, good father, and grant you
the accomplishment of your desires."

The dervish returned the prince's salutation, but spoke so
unintelligibly that he could not understand one word he said. Prince
Bahman perceiving that this difficulty proceeded from the dervish's
hair hanging over his mouth, and unwilling to go any farther without
the instructions he wanted, pulled out a pair of scissors he had about
him, and having tied his horse to a branch of the tree, said, "Good
dervish, I want to have some talk with you, but your hair prevents my
understanding what you say, and if you will consent, I will cut off
some part of it and of your eyebrows, which disfigure you so much
that you look more like a bear than a man."

The dervish did not oppose the offer; and when the prince had cut off
as much hair as he thought fit, h