fail to carry out this command he shall be punished in like manner.  So place guards and inspectors to enforce obedience and let me hear if there be aught of gainsaying.”  The Wazir durst not make reply but carried out the Shah’s commandments; and this punishment inflicted upon the blameless Queen had far better befitted her Envious Sisters.—­And as the morn began to dawn Shahrazad held her peace till

      The End of the Six Hundred and Seventy-first Night.

Then said she—­I have heard, O auspicious King, that the cage was made ready with all speed; and, when the forty days after purification of child-bed[FN#357] had come to an end, the Banu was locked therein; and, according to the King’s commandment, all who came to prayer in the Great Mosque would first spit in her face.  The hapless woman, well knowing that she as not worthy of this ignominy, bore her sufferings with all patience and fortitude; nor were they few who deemed her blameless and undeserving to endure these torments and tortures inflicted upon her by the Shah; and they pitied her and offered prayers and made vows for her release.  Meanwhile the Intendant of the gardens and his wife brought up the two Princes and the Princess with all love and tenderness; and, as the children grew in years, their love for these adopted ones increased in like proportion.  They gave the eldest Prince the name Bahman,[FN#358], and to his brother Parwez,[FN#359], and as the maiden was of rare of beauty and passing of loveliness and graciousness, they called her Perizadah.[FN#360] When the Princes became of years to receive instruction, the Intendant of the gardens appointed tutors and masters to teach them reading and writing and all the arts and sciences:  the Princess also, showing like eagerness to acquire knowledge, was taught letters by the same instructors, and soon could read and write with as perfect fluency and fluency as could her brothers.  Then they were placed under the most learned of the Philosophers and the Olema, who taught them the interpretation of the Koran and the sayings of the Apostle; the science of geometry as well as poetry and history, and even the abstruse sciences and the mystic doctrines of the Enlightened; and their teachers were astonished to find how soon and how far all three made progress in their studies and bid fair to outstrip even the sages however learned.  Moreover, they all three were reared to horsemanship and skill in the chase, to shooting with shafts and lunging with lance and sway with sabre and jerking the Jerid, with other manly and warlike sports.  Besides all this the Princess Perizadah was taught to sing and play on various instruments of mirth and merriment, wherein she became the peerless pearl of her age and time.  The Intendant was exceeding glad of heart to find his adopted children prove themselves such proficients in every branch of knowledge; and presently, forasmuch as his lodging was small and unfit for the growing family, he bought