be after this fashion till she had become a mother of seven. But the Wazir, of his stress and excess of the trouble and the travail he endured, said to himself, "How long shall last this toil and torment wherewith I am liver-smitten and that too by mine own consent? So e'en will I arise and hie me to this sea and hurl me thereinto and whatso shall become of me let it be: haply I may find rest from these torments into which I have fallen." And forthright he arose and sought the shore and did as he had devised, when a wave enveloped him and cast him deep into the depths and he was like to choke, when suddenly his head protruded from the chauldron and he was seated as before he had ducked it. Hereupon he saw the Caliph sitting in state with the Sage by his side and all the Lords of the land and the Notables of the commons awaiting the end of his adventure. So he gazed at them and showed a smiling face[FN#267] and laughed aloud when the Prince of True Believers asked him saying, "What hast thou seen, O Wazir?" So he repeated to the Sovran all he had sighted and everything that had come down upon his head, presently adding, "O Caliph of the Age and the sum and sub stance of the Time and the Tide, what be these marvels wrought by this Sage? Verily I have beheld the garths of Paradise[FN#268] with maidens of the Húr and the youths of Heaven, and wonderments galore unlooked upon by mankind at all, at all. But, an thou be pleased, O Commander of the Faithful, to espy these rare spectacles and marvellous conditions with thine own eyes, deign go down into the water; so shalt thou divert thyself with peregrine matters and adventures seld-seen." The Sultan, delighted at this rede, arose and doffed his dress; then, girding his loins with a zone, he entered the chauldron whereat the Sage cried out to him, "O my lord, sit thee down and duck thy head." But when this was done the Caliph found himself in a bottomless sea and wide dispread and never at rest by any manner of means, so he fell to swimming therein, when a huge breaker threw him high ashore and he walked up the beach mother-naked save for his zone. So he said in his mind, "Let me see what hath been wrought with me by the Sage and the Wazir who have thus practiced upon me and have cast me in this place; and haply they have married my daughter to the youth, and they have stolen my kingdom, the Sage becoming Sultan in my stead. And now let me ask myself, 'What had I to do with such damned diversion as this?'" But as he brooded over these thoughts and the like of them behold, a bevy of maidens came forwards to fill their pitchers from a fountain and a pool of sweet water lying beside the sea; and sighting him they exclaimed, "Thou, who art thou? say sooth be thou of man-kind or rather haply of Jinn-kind?" He replied, "I am a mortal and of the noblest-born; withal I am a stranger in the land and I wot not whither I should wend." "Of what country art thou?" asked they, and he answered, "I am from