the like of those thou broughtest to me, and as many white handmaids to carry them and two score black eunuch-slaves to serve and escort the bearers. An thy son avail hereto I will marry him with my daughter.” Thereupon she returned home wagging her head and saying in her mind, “Whence can my poor boy procure these platters and such jewels? And granted that he return to the Enchanted Treasury and pluck them from the trees which, however, I hold impossible; yet given that he bring them whence shall he come by the girls and the blacks?” Nor did she leave communing with herself till she reached her home, where she found Alaeddin awaiting her, and she lost no time in saying, “O my son, did I not tell thee never to fancy that thy power would extend to the Lady Badr al-Budur, and that such a matter is not possible to folk like ourselves?” “Recount to me the news,” quoth he; so quoth she, “O my child, verily the Sultan received me with all honour according to his custom and, meseemeth his intentions towards us be friendly. But thine enemy is that accursed Wazir; for, after I addressed the King in thy name as thou badest me say:—In very sooth the promised term is past, adding:—’Twere well an thy Highness would deign issue commandment for the espousals of thy daughter the Lady Badr al-Budur to my son Alaeddin, he turned to and addressed the Minister who answered privily, after which the Sultan gave me his reply.” Then she enumerated the King’s demands and said, “O my son, he indeed expecteth of thee an instant reply; but I fancy that we have no answer for him.”——And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. Now when it was the Five Hundred and Fifty-eighth Night,