slave-women and men-at-arms, all splendidly accoutred and weaponed for war.  They spread the sails and she said to the captains, “If you overtake the Magian’s ship, ye shall have of me dresses of honour and largesse of money; but if you fail so to do, I will slay you to the last man.”  Whereat fear and great hope animated the crews and they sailed all that day and the night and the second day and the third day till, on the fourth they sighted the ship of Bahram, the Magian, and before evening fell the Queen’s squadron had surrounded it on all sides, just as Bahram had taken As’ad forth of the chest and was beating and torturing him, whilst the Prince cried out for help and deliverance, but found neither helper nor deliverer:  and the grievous bastinado sorely tormented him.  Now while so occupied, Bahram chanced to look up and, seeing himself encompassed by the Queen’s ships, as the white of the eye encompasseth the black, he gave himself up for lost and groaned and said, “Woe to thee, O As’ad!  This is all out of thy head.”  Then taking him by the hand he bade his men throw him overboard and cried, “By Allah I will slay thee before I die myself!” So they carried him along by the hands and feet and cast him into the sea and he sank; but Allah (be He extolled and exalted!) willed that his life be saved and that his doom be deferred; so He caused him to sink and rise again and he struck out with his hands and feet, till the Almighty gave him relief, and sent him deliverance; and the waves bore him far from the Magian’s ship and threw him ashore.  He landed, scarce crediting his escape, and once more on land he doffed his clothes and wrung them and spread them out to dry; whilst he sat naked and weeping over his condition, and bewailing his calamities and mortal dangers, and captivity and stranger hood.  And presently he repeated these two couplets,

“Allah, my patience fails:  I have no ward; *
     My breast is straitened and clean cut my cord;
To whom shall wretched slave of case complain *
     Save to his Lord?  O thou of lords the Lord!”

Then, having ended his verse, he rose and donned his clothes but he knew not whither to go or whence to come; so he fed on the herbs of the earth and the fruits of the trees and he drank of the streams, and fared on night and day till he came in sight of a city; whereupon he rejoiced and hastened his pace; but when he reached it,—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

      When it Was the Two Hundred and Thirty-sixth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when he reached the city the shades of evening closed around him and the gates were shut.  Now by the decrees of Pate and man’s lot this was the very city wherein he had been a prisoner and to whose King his brother Amjad was Minister.  When As’ad saw the gate was locked, he turned back and made for the burial-ground, where finding a tomb without a