Dinarzade called the sultaness at the usual hour, saying, Sister, if you be not asleep, pray do us the favour to tell us how the Lady of Beauty restored the second calender to his former shape. You shall hear it, said Scheherazade: The calender resumed his discourse thus: The princess, the Lady of Beauty, went into her apartment, from whence she brought in a knife, which had some Hebrew words engraven on the blade; she made the sultan, the master of the eunuchs, the little slave, and myself, go down into a private court of the palace, and there left us under a gallery that went round it. She placed herself in the middle of the court, where she made a great circle, and within it she wrote several words in Arabian characters, some of them ancient, and others of those which they call the characters of Cleopatra. When she had finished and prepared the circle as she thought fit, she placed herself in the centre of it, where she began abjurations, and repeated verses out of the Koran. The air grew insensibly dark, as if it had been night, and the whole world about to be dissolved: we found ourselves struck with a panic, and this fear increased the more when we saw the genie, the son of the daughter of Eblis, appear on a sudden in the shape of a lion of a frightful size. 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? --O! 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 on 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 only was 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 the sight of them both.