of God.”  Replied Philomelet, “Beside thee lie two heaps of clay whereof one is white and the other blue:  this is used in sorcery and that to loose the spells.”—­And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted say.  Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I should relate to you on the coming night an the Sovran suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was

The Four Hundred and Twentieth Night,

Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Bird said to the youngest son of the Sultan, “By the side of my cage are two heaps of clay, this blue and that white; and the first is the material for sorcery whilst the second looseth the spell.”  Hereupon the youth approached them and finding the mounds took somewhat of the white and scattered it upon the stones and cried, “Be ye returned unto your olden shapes;” and, as he did so, each and every of the stones became men as they had been.  Now amongst them were sundry sons of the Sultans, also the children of Kings and Wazirs and Bashas and Lords of the land, and of the number two were the elder brothers of the young Prince:  so they salamed to him and all congratulated one another to their safety.  After this one came forward to the youth and said to him, “Verily this place is a city, all and some of whose folk are ensorcelled.”  So he took a somewhat of clay from the white and entered the streets, where, finding the case as described to him, he fell to sifting the clay upon them and they were transmewed from statutes of stone into the shapes of Adam’s sons.  Then, at last, the sons of that city rose one and all and began offering to the Prince gifts and rarities until he had of them a mighty matter.  But when his brothers saw that he had become master of the bird Philomelet and his cage, and all these presents and choice treasures, they were filled with envy of him[FN#296] and said each to other, “How shall our brother win him all this and we abide with him in servile condition, especially when we hie us homewards and return to our own land?  And will not folk say that the salvation of the two elder brothers was by the hand of the youngest?  But we cannot endure such disgrace as this!” So envy entered them and in their jealousy they planned and plotted the death of their cadet, who knew not that was in their minds or whatso was hidden from him in the Limbo of Secrets.  And when they had wrought their work the youngest Prince arose and bade his pages and eunuchs lade the loads upon the camels and