loved so constantly ever since, let me sleep a few moments by you; for I found myself so very sleepy, that I came to this place to take a little rest. Having spoken thus, he laid down his huge head upon the lady’s knees, and stretching out his legs, which reached as far as the sea, he fell asleep presently, and snored so that he made the banks echo again. The lady happening at the same time to look up to the tree, saw the two princes, and made a sign to them with her hand to come down without making any noise. Their fear was extreme when they found themselves discovered, and they prayed the lady, by other signs, to excuse them; but she, after having laid the monster’s head softly down on the ground, rose up and spoke to them with a low, but eager voice, to come down to her; she would take no denial. They made signs to her that they were afraid of the genie, and would fain have been excused. Upon which she ordered them to come down, and if they did not make haste, threatened to awake the genie, and bid him kill them. These words did so much intimidate the princes, that they began to come down with all possible precaution, lest they should awake the genie. When they came down, the lady took them by the hand, and going a little farther with them under the trees, made a very urgent proposal to them. At first they rejected it, but she obliged them to accept it by her threats. Having obtained what she desired, she perceived that each of them had a ring on his finger, which she demanded of them. As soon as she received them, she went and took a box out of the bundle, where her toilet was, pulled out a string of other rings of all sorts, which she showed them, and asked them if they knew what those jewels meant. No, said they, we hope you will be pleased to tell us. These are, replied she, the rings of all the men to whom I have granted my favours. There are full fourscore and eighteen of them, which I keep as tokens to remember them; and asked your’s for the same reason, to make up the hundred. So that, continued she, I have a hundred gallants already, notwithstanding the vigilance of this wicked genie, who never leaves me. He may lock me up in this glass box, and hide me in the bottom of the sea; I find a way to cheat his care. You may see by this, that when a woman has formed a project, there is no husband or lover that can hinder her putting it into execution. Men had better not put their wives under such restraint, as it only serves to teach them cunning. Having spoken thus to them, she put their rings upon the same string with the rest, and sitting down by the monster, as before, laid his head again upon her lap, and made a sign for the princes to be gone.