As soon as the princess perceived this monster, You dog, said she, instead of creeping before me, dare you present yourself in this shape, thinking to frighten me?  And thou, replied the lion, art thou not afraid to break the treaty which was solemnly made and confirmed between us by oath, not to wrong or do one another any hurt?  Oh, thou cursed creature! replied the princess, I can justly reproach thee with doing so.  The lion answered fiercely, Thou shalt quickly have thy reward for the trouble thou hast given me to return:  With that he opened his terrible throat, and ran at her to devour her; but she, being upon her guard, leaped backward, got time to pull out one of her hairs, and, by pronouncing three or four words, changed herself into a sharp sword, wherewith she cut the lion through the middle in two pieces.

The two parts of the lion vanished, and the head was only left, which changed itself into a large scorpion.  Immediately the princess turned herself into a serpent, and fought the scorpion, who, finding himself worsted, took the shape of an eagle, and flew away:  But the serpent at the same time took also the shape of an eagle that was black and much stronger, and pursued him, so that we lost sight of them both.

Some time after they disappeared, the ground opened before us, and out of it came forth a cat, black and white, with her hair standing upright, and keeping up a fearful mewling; a black wolf followed her close, and gave her no time to rest.  The cat, being thus hard beset, changed herself into a worm, and being nigh to a pomegranate that had accidentally fallen from a tree that grew on the side of a canal, which was deep, but not broad, the worm pierced the pomegranate in an instant, and hid itself; but the pomegranate swelled immediately, and became as big as a gourd, which, mounting up to the top of the gallery, rolled there for some space backward and forward, fell down again into the court, and broke into several pieces.

The wolf, who had in the meanwhile transformed itself into a cock, fell a-picking up the seeds of the pomegranate one after another; but, finding no more, he came towards us with his wings spread, making a great noise, as if he would ask us whether there was any more seed?  There was one lying on the brink of the canal, which the cock perceiving as he went back, ran speedily thither; but just as he was going to pick it up, the seed rolled into the river, and turned into a little fish.

The cock jumped into the river, and was turned into a pike, that pursued the small fish; they continued both under water above two hours, and we knew not what became of them; but all of a sudden we heard terrible cries, which made us to quake, and a little while after we saw the genie and princess all in flames.  They threw flashes of fire out of their mouths at one another, until they came to it hand to hand; then the fires increased, with a thick burning smoke, which mounted so high, that we had reason to fear that it