all hope of safety; but thou, why hast thou come hither to perish?  Escape without stay or delay, for he hath gone forth in quest of wayfarers and right soon will he return.  Moreover he can see far and wide and can descry all who traverse this wold.”  Now hardly had the lady spoken these words when the Abyssinian drew in sight; and he was as a Ghul of the Wild, big of bulk, and fearsome of favour and figure, and he mounted a sturdy Tartar steed, brandishing, as he rode, a weighty blade which none save he could wield.  Prince Khudadad seeing this monstrous semblance was sore amazed and prayed Heaven that he might be victorious over that devil:  then unsheathing his sword he stood awaiting the Abyssinian’s approach with courage and steadfastness; but the blackamoor when he drew near deemed the Prince too slight and puny to fight and was minded to seize him alive.  Khudadad, seeing how his foe had no intent to combat, struck him with his sword on the knee a stroke so dour that the negro foamed with rage and yelled a yell so loud that the whole prairie resounded with the plaint.  Thereupon the brigand, fiery with fury, rose straight in his shovel-stirrups and struck fiercely at Khudadad with his huge sword and, but for the Prince’s cunning of fence and the cleverness of his courser, he would have been sliced in twain like unto a cucumber.  Though the scymitar whistled through the air, the blow was harmless, and in an eye-twinkling Khudadad dealt him a second cut and struck off his right hand which fell to the ground with the sword hilt it gripped, when the blackamoor losing his balance rolled from the saddle and made earth resound with the fall.  Thereupon the Prince sprang from his steed and deftly severing the enemy’s head from his body threw it aside.  Now the lady had been looking down at the lattice rigid in prayer for the gallant youth; and, seeing the Abyssinian slain and the Prince victorious, she was overcome with exceeding joy and cried out to her deliverer, “Praise be to Almighty Allah, O my lord, who by thy hand hath defeated and destroyed this fiend.  Come now to me within the castle, whose keys are with the Abyssinian; so take them and open the door and deliver me.”  Khudadad found a large bunch of keys under the dead man’s girdle wherewith he opened the portals of the fort and entered a large saloon in which was the lady; and, no sooner did she behold him than running to meet him she was about to cast herself at his feet and kiss them when Khudadad prevented her.  She praised him with highest praise and extolled him for valiancy above all the champions of the world, and he returned the salam to her who, when seen near hand seemed endued with more grace and charms than had appeared from afar.  So the Prince joyed with extreme joy and the twain sat down in pleasant converse.  Presently, Khudadad heard shrieks and cries and weeping and wailing with groans and moans and ever loudening lamentations; so he asked the lady, saying, “whence are these clamours and from whom come these pitiful