Early the next morning, when the Sultan went as usual to gaze upon Aladdin's palace, it was nowhere to be seen. How so large a building that had been standing for some years could disappear so completely, and leave no trace behind, he could not understand. The Grand Vizier was summoned to explain it. In secret be bore no good will to Aladdin, and was glad to suggest that the very building of the palace had been by magic, and that the hunting party had been merely an excuse for the removal of the palace by the same means. The Sultan was persuaded, therefore, to send a body of his guards to seize Aladdin as a prisoner of state. When he appeared the Sultan would hear no word from him, but ordered him put to death. This displeased the people so much that the Sultan, fearing a riot, granted him his life and let him speak. "Sire," said Aladdin, "I pray you to let me know the crime by which I have lost thy favor?" "Your crime!" answered the Sultan; "wretched man! do you not know it? Follow me, and I will show you." Then he led Aladdin to a window and said, "You ought to know where your palace stood; look, and tell me what has become of it." Aladdin was as much amazed as the Sultan had been. "True, it is vanished," he said after a speechless pause, "but I have had no concern in its removal. I beg you to give me forty days, and if in that time I cannot restore it, I will offer my head to be disposed of at your pleasure." "I give you the time you ask," answered the Sultan, "but at the end of forty days forget not to present yourself before me." The lords, who had courted Aladdin in his better days, paid him no heed as he left the palace in extreme shame. For three days he wandered about the city, exciting the pity of all he met by asking if they had seen his palace, or could tell where it was. On the third day he wandered into the country. As he approached a river he slipped and fell down a bank. Clutching at a rock to save himself, he rubbed his ring, and instantly the genie whom he had seen in the cave appeared before him. "What wouldst thou have?" said the genie. "I am ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of all those that have that ring on their finger,--both I and the other slaves of the ring." Aladdin had never thought of help from this quarter, and said with delight,-- "Genie, show me where the palace I caused to be built now stands, or bring it back where it first stood." "Your command," answered the genie, "is not wholly in my power; I am only the slave of the ring, and not of the lamp." "I command thee, then," replied Aladdin, "by the power of the ring, to bear me to the spot where my palace stands, wherever it may be."