The fisherman was much afflicted at this speech. “How unfortunate,” he exclaimed, “am I, to come here and render so great a service to such an ungrateful object! Consider, I entreat you, of your injustice; and revoke so unreasonable an oath. Pardon me, and God will in like manner pardon you. If you generously suffer me to live, he will defend you from all attempts that may be made against your life.”--“No,” answered the Genius, “thy death is sure; determine only how I shall kill thee.”--The fisherman was in great distress, and finding him thus resolved on his death, not so much on his own account as on that of his three children, whose wretched state they greatly deplored, when they would be reduced by his death. He still endeavoured to appease the Genius. “Alas!” he cried, “have pity on me, in consideration of what I have done for you.”--“I have already told thee,” replied the Genius, “that it is for that very reason that I am obliged to take thy life.”--“It is very strange,” added the fisherman, “that you are determined to return evil for good. The proverb says, that he who does good to him that does not deserve it, is always ill rewarded. I did think, I own, that it was false, because nothing is more contrary to reason, and the rights of society: yet I cruelly find it too true.”--“Let us lose no time,” cried the Genius, “your arguments will not alter my resolution. Make haste, and tell me how you wish to die.” Necessity is the spur to invention; and the fisherman thought of a stratagem. “Since then,” said he, “I cannot escape death, I submit to the will of God; but before I choose the sort of death, I conjure you, by the great name of God, which is graven upon the seal of the prophet Solomon, the son of David, answer me truly to a question I am going to put to you.” When the Genius found that he should be compelled to answer positively, he trembled, and said to the fisherman, “Ask what thou wilt, and make haste.” The Genius had no sooner promised to speak the truth, than the fisherman said to him, “I wish to know whether you really were in that vase; dare you swear it by the great name of God?” --“Yes,” answered the Genius, “I do swear by the great name of God, that I most certainly was.”--“In truth,” replied the fisherman, “I cannot believe you. This vase cannot contain one of your feet; how then can it hold your whole body?”--“I swear to thee, notwithstanding,” replied he, “that I was there just as thou seest me. Wilt thou not believe me after the solemn oath I have taken?”--“No truly,” added the fisherman, “I shall not believe you, unless I were to see it.”