After travelling about a month, they one day entered a plain of great extent, planted at convenient distances with tall trees, forming an agreeable shade.  The day being unusually hot, the prince thought it best to encamp there, and proposed it to Badoura, who, having the same wish, the more readily consented.  They alighted in one of the finest spots; a tent was presently set up; the princess, rising from the shade under which she had sat down, entered it.  The prince then ordered his attendants to pitch their tents, and went himself to give directions.  The princess, weary with the fatigues of the journey, bade her women untie her girdle, which they laid down by her; and she falling asleep, they left her alone.

Kummir al Zummaun having seen all things in order, came to the tent where the princess was sleeping:  he entered, and sat down without making any noise, intending to repose himself; but observing the princess’s girdle lying by her, he took it up, and looked at the diamonds and rubies one by one.  In viewing it he observed a little purse hanging to it, sewed neatly on the stuff, and tied fast with a riband; he felt it, and found it contained something solid.  Desirous to know what it was, he opened the purse, and took out a cornelian, engraven with unknown figures and characters.  “This cornelian,” said the prince to himself, “must be something very valuable, or my princess would not carry it with so much care.”  It was Badoura’s talisman, which the queen of China had given her daughter as a charm, that would keep her, as she said, from any harm as long as she had it about her.

The prince, the better to look at the talisman, took it out to the light, the tent being dark; and while he was holding it up in his hand, a bird darted down from the air and snatched it away from him.

One will easily conceive the concern and grief of the prince, when he saw the bird fly away with the talisman.  He was more troubled than words can express, and cursed his unseasonable curiosity, by which his dear princess had lost a treasure, that was so precious, and so valued by her.

The bird having got its prize, settled on the ground not far off, with the talisman in its mouth.  The prince drew near it, hoping it would drop it; but as he approached, the bird took wing, and settled again on the ground further off.  Kummir al Zummaun followed, and the bird took a further flight:  the prince being very dexterous at a mark, thought to kill it with a stone, and still pursued; the further it flew, the more eager he grew in pursuing, keeping it always in view.  Thus the bird drew him along from hill to valley, and valley to hill, all the day, every step leading him out of the way from the plain where he had left his camp and the princess Badoura:  and instead of perching at night on a bush, where he might probably have taken it, roosted on a high tree, safe from his pursuit.  The prince, vexed to the heart at having taken so much pains to no purpose,