s, have spent an hour scrambling about in
this manner, when at last Hassan arrived at a passage, closed with a
small iron door, which was not covered with ruins: here he took a
little silver hammer, and knocked nine times on the head of a great
nail which was in the door: at each knock he stopped for some seconds,
and Jussuf heard the sound in singular tones inside the door, as if it
reached to a great distance. At the last stroke the door flew open,
and showed a row of steps leading down to a cellar-like vault.

"Here we must descend," said Hassan; "here thou wilt see many
wonderful things, and thou wilt have rich presents; but take care not
to refuse any presents, or to speak a word: only when thou art asked
if thou hast enough, always answer no, till they abuse thee as an
unreasonable person, and ask thee what thou still desirest, then say
the word 'Ketlafgat,'--it is the name of a talisman, without which
thou canst never attain the end of thy wishes."

Jussuf observed the word, and promised to obey his instructor. They
now descended the steps together; and the door closed behind them with
a great noise. As they proceeded in profound darkness, Jussuf thought
of the talisman which he had received from Modibjah: he wished to see
if he were walking in the right road, and drew it out of the pouch:
although it was very dark, he still discerned the bright red spark in
the stone. He now descended after his guide with more courage. They
might have left about fifty steps behind when they arrived at a large
room: over this was raised a vast round vault from the ground, in the
form of a regular hemisphere. From the middle of the vault hung a
great lamp, on which, out of twelve branches, burned twelve long
dazzling white flames. The whole vault played with thousands of lights
of this flame, as if it were faced with an innumerable number of small
mirrors. As Jussuf moved to one side, curious to see the cause of this
reflection, he perceived that the vault was covered with eight large
oriental pearls of the greatest clearness, and that the space between
four of them was filled up with a smaller. He tried to detach one of
the large pearls from the wall; but it was so fast cemented that it
was impossible to remove it. In the meantime his guide had reached a
concealed door, and had knocked three times with his little hammer on
one spot. The door sprang open, and they entered a spacious
four-cornered room, on the walls of which were