this signet shall save thee from every strait an thou fall into calamity and ill shifts of time; and it shall remove from thee all hurt and harm, and aid thee with a strong arm whereso thou mayest be set."[FN#100] Now this was by destiny of God the Great, that it might be the means of Alaeddin’s escape; for whilst he sat wailing and weeping over his case and cast away all hope of life, and utter misery overwhelmed him, he rubbed his hands together for excess of sorrow, as is the wont of the woeful; then, raising them in supplication to Allah, he cried, “I testify that there is no God save Thou alone, The Most Great, the Omnipotent, the All-Conquering, Quickener of the dead, Creator of man’s need and Granter thereof, Resolver of his difficulties and duresse and Bringer of joy not of annoy.  Thou art my sufficiency and Thou art the Truest of Trustees.  And I bear witness that Mohammed is Thy servant and Thine Apostle and I supplicate Thee, O my God, by his favour with Thee to free me from this my foul plight.”  And whilst he implored the Lord and was chafing his hands in the soreness of his sorrow for that had befallen him of calamity, his fingers chanced to rub the Ring when, lo and behold! forthright its Familiar rose upright before him and cried, “Adsum; thy slave between thy hands is come!  Ask whatso thou wantest, for that I am the thrall of him on whose hand is the Ring, the Signet of my lord and master.”  Hereat the lad looked at him and saw standing before him a Marid like unto an Ifrit[FN#101] of our lord Solomon’s Jinns.  He trembled at the terrible sight; but, hearing the Slave of the Ring say, “Ask whatso thou wantest, verily, I am thy thrall, seeing that the signet of my lord be upon thy finger,” he recovered his spirits and remembered the Moorman’s saying when giving him the Ring So he rejoiced exceedingly and became brave and cried, “Ho thou; Slave of the Lord of the Ring, I desire thee to set me upon the face of earth.”  And hardly had he spoken this speech when suddenly the ground clave asunder and he found himself at the door of the Hoard and outside it in full view of the world.  Now for three whole days he had been sitting in the darkness of the Treasury underground and when the sheen of day and the thine of sun smote his face he found himself unable to keep his eyes open; so he began to unclose the lids a little and to close them a little until his eyeballs regained force and got used to the light and were purged of the noisome murk.—­And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

      When it was the Five Hundred and Thirty-first Night,