For myself, being unable to endure her cries, I ascended the stairs, overpowered by fear, and, arriving at the top, replaced the trap-door as it was at first, and covered it over with earth. I repented bitterly of what I had done, and reflecting upon the lady and her beauty, and how this wretch was torturing her after she had lived with him five and twenty years, and that he tortured her only on my account, and reflecting also upon my father and his kingdom, and how I had been reduced to the condition of a wood-cutter, I repeated this verse:-- When fortune bringeth thee affliction, console thyself by remembering that one day thou must see prosperity, and another day, difficulty. [Illustration] Returning to my companion, the tailor, I found him awaiting my return as if he were placed in a pan upon burning coals. I past last night, said he, with anxious heart on thy account, fearing for thee from some wild beast or other calamity. Praise be to God for thy safe return.--I thanked him for his tender concern for me, and entered my apartment; and as I sat meditating upon that which had befallen me, and blaming myself for having kicked the ḳubbeh, my friend the tailor came in to me, and said, In the shop is a foreigner, who asks for thee, and he has thy axe and sandals; he came with them to the wood-cutters,[III_56] and said to them, I went out at the time of the call of the Muëddin to morning-prayer, and stumbled upon these, and know not to whom they belong: can ye guide me to their owner?--The wood-cutters, therefore, directed him to thee: he is sitting in my shop; so go out to him and thank him, and take thy axe and thy sandals.--On hearing these words, my countenance turned pale, and my whole state became changed; and while I was in this condition, the floor of my chamber clove asunder, and there rose from it the stranger, and lo, he was the 'Efreet; he had tortured the lady with the utmost cruelty; but she would confess nothing: so he took the axe and the sandals, and said to her, If I am Jarjarees, of the descendants of Iblees, I will bring the owner of this axe and these sandals. Accordingly, he came, with the pretence before mentioned, to the wood-cutters, and, having entered my chamber, without granting me any delay, seized me, and soared with me through the air: he then descended, and dived into the earth, and brought me up into the palace where I was before.