red and the helpless can find no
protection in thy government, though thou boastest thyself the
delegate of Allah and the friend of the oppressed; and I, trusting to
thy specious virtues, have fallen a sacrifice to thy deceitful
heart."

Her iniquitous spirit then fled from the body of Ulin, and the Sultan
left her mangled and deformed corpse a prey to the beasts of the
forest.

He travelled for several days backward, hoping to find the former
companions of his misery, and at last came to the place which he had
left, but could see no signs of them; wherefore, concluding that their
enchantment was broken by the death of Ulin, the Sultan returned
towards Delhi, subsisting on the leaves which the dervish had given
him, and on the fruits of the earth, and in twelve days' time arrived
at a small town in his own dominions. Here he lodged at a poor
cottage, where he found an old woman and her son, and inquired whether
she could procure him any horses or mules to carry him the next
morning to Delhi.

"Alas!" answered the old woman, "we have no cattle with us; the army
has stripped us of all."

"What!" answered Misnar, "has the rebel army been foraging so near
Delhi?"

"Alack!" said the old woman, "I think all armies are rebels, for my
part. Indeed, the soldiers told us that they were the Sultan's army,
and that they were sent to guard us from the rebels; but in the
meantime they took our cattle and provision, and paid us nothing for
them; and still, every time they came, they called themselves our
guardians and friends. If this is all the friendship great men can
show us, we poor people should be best pleased to live as far from
them as we can."

Although Misnar smiled at the poor woman's speech, yet, lifting up his
eyes and hands secretly to heaven, as she went out for sticks to
kindle a fire to dress his provisions, he said, "O just and merciful
Allah, preserve me from the avarice of ambition! that, while the rich
and the proud advise me to delight in blood, I may ever remember the
severities which the poor must suffer; and that I may rather rejoice
to relieve one oppressed slave, than to enrich ten thousand flattering
Emirs of my Court!"

As soon as the old woman entered again into her house, the disguised
Sultan advised her and her neighbours to join in a petition, and
present it to the Sultan in his divan.

"A petition!" answered the old woman, "and for what?"

"To relieve your distresses," said Misnar.

"A