whilst I live, to hold it in mine embrace and would keep it as my right eye.’  Whereupon said he to me, ’What time I was born, the astrologers predicted that I should lose my soul at the hands of the son of a king of mankind.  So I took it and set it in the crop of a sparrow, and shut up the bird in a box.  The box I set in a casket, and enclosing this in seven other caskets and seven chests, laid the whole in a alabastrine coffer,[FN#424] which I buried within the marge of yon earth-circling sea; for that these parts are far from the world of men and none of them can win hither.  So now see I have told thee what thou wouldst know, and do thou tell none thereof, for it is a secret between me and thee.’”—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

     When it was the Seven Hundred and Seventieth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Daulat Khatun acquainted Sayf al-Muluk with the whereabouts of the soul of the Jinni who had carried her off and repeated to him his speech ending with, “And this is a secret between me and thee!” “I rejoined,” quoth she, “’To whom should I tell it, seeing that none but thou cometh hither with whom I may talk thereof?’ adding, ’By Allah, thou hast indeed set thy soul in the strongest of strongholds to which none may gain access!  How should a man win to it, unless the impossible be fore-ordained and Allah decree like as the astrologers predicted?’ Thereupon the Jinni, ’Peradventure one may come, having on his finger the seal-ring of Solomon son of David (on the twain be peace!) and lay his hand with the ring on the face of the water, saying, ’By the virtue of the names engraven upon this ring, let the soul of such an one come forth!’ Whereupon the coffer will rise to the surface and he will break it open and do the like with the chests and caskets, till he come to the little box, when he will take out the sparrow and strangle it, and I shall die.’” Then said Sayf al-Muluk, “I am the King’s son of whom he spake, and this is the ring of Solomon David-son on my finger:  so rise, let us go down to the sea-shore and see if his words be leal or leasing!” Thereupon the two walked down to the sea-shore and the Princess stood on the beach, whilst the Prince waded into the water to his waist and laying his hand with the ring on the surface of the sea, said, “By the virtue of the names and talismans engraven on this ring, and by the might of Sulayman bid Daud (on whom be the Peace!), let the soul of Hatim the Jinni, son of the Blue King, come forth!” Whereat the sea boiled in billows and the coffer of alabaster rose to the surface.  Sayf al-Muluk took it and shattered it against the rock and broke open the chests and caskets, till he came to the little box and drew thereout the sparrow.  Then the twain returned to the castle and sat down on the throne; but hardly had they done this, when lo and behold! there arose a dust-cloud terrifying and some huge thing came flying