So the next day the king and all his court rode out to the place appointed. As they drew near they saw that the whole face of the plain was covered with a mighty host, drawn up in troops and squadrons. As the king rode towards this vast army, Abdallah met him, surrounded by his generals. He dismounted and would have kneeled, but the king would not permit him, but, raising him, kissed him upon the cheek, calling him son. Then the king and Abdallah rode down before the ranks and the whole army waved their swords, and the flashing of the sunlight on the blades was like lightning, and they shouted, and the noise was like the pealing of thunder. * * * * * Before Abdallah marched off to the wars he and the princess were married, and for a whole fortnight nothing was heard but the sound of rejoicing. The city was illuminated from end to end, and all of the fountains ran with wine instead of water. And of all those who rejoiced, none was so happy as the princess, for never had she seen one whom she thought so grand and noble and handsome as her husband. After the fortnight had passed and gone, the army marched away to the wars with Abdallah at its head. Victory after victory followed, for in every engagement the Emperor of India’s troops were driven from the field. In two months’ time the war was over and Abdallah marched back again--the greatest general in the world. But it was no longer as Abdallah that he was known, but as the Emperor of India, for the former emperor had been killed in the war, and Abdallah had set the crown upon his own head. The little taste that he had had of conquest had given him an appetite for more, so that with the armies the Genie provided him he conquered all the neighboring countries and brought them under his rule. So he became the greatest emperor in all of the world; kings and princes kneeled before him, and he, Abdallah, the fagot-maker, looking about him, could say: “No one in all the world is so great as I!” Could he desire anything more? * * * * * Yes; he did! He desired to be rid of the Genie! When he thought of how all that he was in power and might--he, the Emperor of the World--how all his riches and all his glory had come as gifts from a hideous black monster with only one eye, his heart was filled with bitterness. “I cannot forget,” said he to himself, “that as he has given me all these things, he may take them all away again. Suppose that I should lose my ring and that some one else should find it; who knows but that they might become as great as I, and strip me of everything, as I have stripped others. Yes; I wish he was out of the way!”