Came by a Christian merchant at dawn of day, and running against the hunchback tumbled him over; then thinking himself attacked he struck the body, and at that moment the watch came by and haled the merchant before the sultan.

Now the hunchback was a favourite of the sultan, and he ordered the Christian merchant to be executed.

To the scaffold, just when death was to be done, came the Mussulman, and confessed that he was the murderer.  So the executioner released the Christian, and was about to hang the other, when the doctor came and confessed to being the murderer.  So the doctor took the place of the Mussulman, when the tailor and his wife hastened to the scene, and confessed that they were guilty.

Now, when this story came to the ears of the sultan, he said:  “Great is Allah, whose will must be done!” and he released all of them, and commanded this story of the hunchback to be written in a book.

VI.—­Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp

There was in the old time a bad and idle boy who lived with his mother, a poor widow, and gave her much unrest.  And there came to him one day a wicked magician, who called himself the boy’s uncle, and made rich presents to the mother, and one day he led Aladdin out to make him a merchant.  Now, the magician knew by his magic of a vast hoard of wealth, together with a wonderful lamp, which lay in the earth buried in Aladdin’s name.  And he sent the boy to fetch the lamp, giving him a magic ring, and waited on the earth for his return.  But Aladdin, his pockets full of jewels, refused to give up the lamp till his false uncle helped him to the surface of the earth, and in rage the magician caused the stone to fall upon the cave, and left Aladdin to die.

But as he wept, wringing his hands, the genie of the magic ring appeared, and by his aid Aladdin was restored to his mother.  There, with the genie of the lamp to wait upon him, he lived, till, seeing the sultan’s daughter pass on her way to the bath, he conceived violent love for her, and sent his mother to the sultan with all his wonderful jewels, asking the princess in marriage.  The sultan, astonished by the gift of jewels, set Aladdin to perform prodigies of wonder, but all these he accomplished by aid of the genie, so that at last the sultan was obliged to give him the princess in marriage.  And Aladdin caused a great pavilion to rise near the sultan’s palace, and this was one of the wonders of the world, and there he abode in honour and fame.

Then the wicked magician, knowing by magic the glory of Aladdin, came disguised, crying “New Lamps for Old!” and one of the maids in the pavilion gave him the wonderful lamp, and received a new one from the coppersmith.  The magician transplanted the pavilion to Africa, and Aladdin, coming home, found the sultan enraged against him and his palace vanished.  But by means of the genie of the ring he discovered the whereabouts of his pavilion, and going thither, slew the magician, possessed himself anew of the lamp, and restored his pavilion to its former site.