obtaining the reward of their evil deeds, they again looked carefully for the bird, but without success; it was nowhere to be seen, and so they were compelled to go forward without the object of their search.  The maina had witnessed the atrocious deed, and unseen had followed the murderers to the place were they had buried the body, it then perched upon the tree beneath which the saint had been wont to enlighten the minds of his followers, and when they assembled flew into their midst, exclaiming, “The Prophet is just!” making short flights and then returning.  These unusual motions, together with the absence of their preceptor, induced the people to follow it and directing its flight to the grave of its master, it uttered a mournful cry over the newly-covered grave.  The villagers, astonished, began to remove the earth, and soon discovered the bloody corse.  Surprised and horror-stricken, they looked about for some traces of the murderers, and perceiving that the bird had resumed the movements which had first induced them to follow it, they suffered it to lead them forward.  Before evening fell, the avengers came up with two men, who no sooner heard the maina exclaim, “The Prophet is just’” and saw the crowd that accompanied it, than they fell upon their knees, confessing that the Prophet had indeed brought their evil deeds to light; so, their crime being thus made manifest, summary justice was inflicted upon them.

     Tale of the damsel tohfat al-Kulub.—­Vol.  XII. p. 47.

An entertaining story, but very inconsistent in the character of Iblis, who is constantly termed, in good Muslim fashion, “the accursed,” yet seems to be somewhat of a follower of the Prophet, and on the whole a good-natured sort of fellow.  His mode of expressing his approval of the damsel’s musical “talent” is, to say the least, original.

Women’swiles.—­Vol.  XII. p. 99.

A variant—­perhaps an older form—­of this story occurs in the tale of Prince Fadlallah, which is interwoven with the History of Prince Calaf and the Princess of China, in the Persian tales of “The Thousand and One Days”: 

The prince, on his way to Baghdad, is attacked by robbers, his followers are all slain, and himself made prisoner, but he is set at liberty by the compassionate wife of the robber-chief during his absence on a plundering expedition.  When he reaches Baghdad he has no resource but to beg his bread, and having stationed himself in front of a large mansion, an old female slave presently comes out and gives him a loaf.  At this moment a gust of wind blew aside the curtain of a window and discovered to his admiring eyes a most beautiful damsel, of whom he became immediately enamoured.  He inquired of a passerby the name of the owner of the mansion, and was informed that it belonged to a man called Mouaffac, who had been lately governor of the city, but having quarrelled with the kazi, who was of a revengeful disposition,