I was preparing myself to give thanks to the princess, but she prevented me, by addressing herself to her father thus: Sir, I have got the victory over the genie, as your majesty may see; but it is a victory that costs me dear; I have but a few moments to live, and you will not have the satisfaction to make the match you intended; the fire has pierced me during the terrible combat, and I find it consumes me by degrees. This would not have happened, had I perceived the last of the pomegranate seeds, and swallowed it as I did the other, when I was changed into a cock. The genie had fled thither as to his last intrenchment, and upon that the success of the combat depended, which would have been successful, and without danger to me. This slip obliged me to have recourse to fire, and to fight with those mighty arms as I did between heaven and earth in your presence; for, in spite of all his redoubtable art and experience, I made the genie to know that I understood more than he: I have conquered and reduced him to ashes, but I cannot escape death, which is approaching. The sultan suffered the princess, the lady of beauty, to go on with the recital of her combat; and when she had done, he spoke to her in a tone that sufficiently testified his grief. My daughter, said he, you see in what condition your father is: Alas! I wonder that I am yet alive! Your governor, the eunuch, is dead, and the prince whom you have delivered from his enchantment has lost one of his eyes. He could speak no more; for his tears, sighs, and sobs, made him speechless; his daughter and I were exceedingly sensible of his sorrow, and wept with him. In the mean time, while we were striving to outdo one another in grief, the princess cried, I burn; Oh, I burn! She found that the fire which consumed her had at last seized upon her whole body, which made her still to cry, I burn, until death had made an end of her intolerable pains. The effect of that was so extraordinary, that in a few moments she was wholly reduced to ashes like the genie. I cannot tell you, madam, how much I was grieved at so dismal a spectacle. I had rather all my life have continued an ape or a dog, than to have seen my benefactress thus miserably perish. The sultan, being afflicted beyond all that can be imagined, cried out piteously, and beat himself upon his head and stomach, until such time as, being quite overcome with grief, he fainted away, which made me fear his life. In the mean time the eunuchs and officers came running at the sultan's cries, and with very much ado brought him to himself again. There was no need for that prince and me to give them a long narrative of this adventure, in order to convince them of their great loss. The two heaps of ashes, into which the princess and genie had been reduced, were demonstration enough. The sultan was hardly able to stand upright, but was forced to be supported by them till he could get to his apartment.