ppen, and imagined that he would not ask them to cut
up and pare the melon.

"That we cannot do," said they, finishing their speech, "for it is
evident that magic is at play here. An ordinary melon cannot grow any
more after it is ripe and picked off the tree; and even if that were
possible, it could not in any case grow to such an immense size as
never has been seen before in the world. Who knows what is hidden in
it?"

"Oh, you silly cowards!" exclaimed Jussuf, provoked at the terror of
his servants,--"shame on you! You are in a foreign land, and do not
consider that everything here is not exactly as it is at home. What
can be concealed in it? Outside is the peel; under the peel is the
pulp; and in the middle is the texture of cells, with the seeds. Look
here," said he to those who stood next to him, as he took off his
short broad scimitar: "I will cut off a piece, that you may see that
it is as I say."

While he spoke, he made two vigorous cuts--one along and the other
across the melon, so as to loosen a four-angled piece of the peel. Now
he commanded one of his slaves to lift up the piece.

As the slave anxiously approached the melon, in order to obey the
command of his master, the piece sprang out of it with wonderful
strength over his head, so that he tumbled backwards on the ground
from terror.

"Mahomet, great Prophet, stand by us!" exclaimed the slaves, when they
saw this. But soon their astonishment changed to terror, and they all
ran away, when suddenly a human figure rose out of the aperture in the
melon, and, with one spring, stood before Jussuf. The latter drew
back, startled as much at the sudden and unexpected appearance of the
man as at his unusual figure. The top of his perfectly flat face was
disfigured by two monstrous eyes, and by long black eyebrows, which
extended over the greatest part of his face. On his short upper lip he
had a narrow but long, hairy, stiff substance, the ends of which
reached to the crown of his head, and there intermixed with his hair
in two tufts, which stood sideways in the air like antennae. His dress
was marked with bright shining stripes of a black and brimstone
colour; and behind him a transparent head-covering hung in two
gauze-like wings nearly down to the ground. His clothes fitted tight
everywhere. He also wore a girdle round his body, which rendered his
leanness still more striking. Besides this, the nail of his middle
finger was very long, and bent over lik