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Zohák sunk into despair, upon the assurance of there being no remedy for him, but Iblís again roused him by saying, that if the serpents were fed daily with human brains, which would probably kill them, his life might be prolonged, and made easy. If life has any charm for thee, The brain of man their food must be!

I am the daughter of a King of Farther India, by name Efitamous, Lord of the Ebony Islands, who married me to my cousin, but on my wedding-night an Afrit called Jerjis ben Rejmous, the mother's sister's son of Iblis, carried me off and flying away with me, set me down in this place whither he transported all that I needed of clothes and ornaments and furniture and meat and drink and so forth.

Wherefore I knew that he was Iblis and that he had done me pimp's duty, and I returned, recalling to my self the words of Abu Nowas in these couplets, "I marvel in Iblis such pride to see * Beside his low intent and villainy: He sinned to Adam who to bow refused, * Yet pimps for all of Adam's progeny," And they tell a tale concerning

Then a tumult rose Among the people, searching for Iblís Through all the palace, but they sought in vain. To young and old it was a marvellous thing; The serpents writhed about as seeking food, And learned men to see the wonder came, And sage magicians tried to charm away That dreadful evil, but no cure was found.

"O great King and mighty priest," replied she, "I will teach thee a shift, which would baffle Iblis himself, though he should call to his aid against it all his grisly hosts. It is that you send fifty thousand men in ships to the Mountain of Smoke and there let them land and stir not till the standards of Islam come upon you, when do you up and at them.

"He is reported to have been the most wretched of men. His wife I pray you will observe I am speaking by the tradition his wife had the power, so dreadful to husbands, of raising Iblis at pleasure. It delighted her to beat him and chase him from his tent; at last she abandoned him." "Ah!" the Princess exclaimed. "His charities were not admirable in her eyes."

They have a hell, 'Timsi-tan-elekhaft, the last fire, where reigns Iblis, our Lucifer. Their Paradise, where they are rewarded for good deeds, is inhabited by 'andjelousen, our angels.

Then he laid his sword under his head-pillow and slept; and when he was drowned in slumber Iblis tempted me to slay him; so I arose in haste, and drawing the sword from under his head, dealt him a blow that made his head fall from his body. But his sister knew what I had done, and rushing out from within the tent, threw herself on his corpse, rending her raiment and repeating these couplets,

And Iblis came to him and, laying his hand upon his nose, blew into his nostrils the breath of hauteur and conceit, so that he magnified and glorified himself and said in his heart, "Who among men is like unto me?" And he became so puffed up with arrogance and self-sufficiency, and so taken up with the thought of his own splendour and magnificence, that he would not vouchsafe a glance to any man.

One day Iblís, the Evil Spirit, appeared to Zohák in the disguise of a good and virtuous man, and conversed with him in the most agreeable manner. Pleased with his eloquence, the youth Suspected not the speaker's truth; But praised the sweet impassioned strain, And asked him to discourse again.