n
worse treatment by an invisible agency, he determined to declare the
marriage to be cancelled, and all the festivities, which were yet to
last for several days, to be countermanded and terminated.

This sudden change in the mind of the sultan gave rise to various
speculations and reports. Nobody but Aladdin knew the secret, and he
kept it with the most scrupulous silence; and neither the sultan nor the
grand vizier, who had forgotten Aladdin and his request, had the least
thought that he had any hand in the strange adventures that befell the
bride and bridegroom.

On the very day that the three months contained in the sultan's promise
expired, the mother of Aladdin again went to the palace, and stood in
the same place in the divan. The sultan knew her again, and directed his
vizier to have her brought before him.

After having prostrated herself, she made answer, in reply to the
sultan: "Sire, I come at the end of three months to ask of you the
fulfillment of the promise you made to my son." The sultan little
thought the request of Aladdin's mother was made to him in earnest, or
that he would hear any more of the matter. He therefore took counsel
with his vizier, who suggested that the sultan should attach such
conditions to the marriage that no one of the humble condition of
Aladdin could possibly fulfill. In accordance with this suggestion of
the vizier, the sultan replied to the mother of Aladdin: "Good woman, it
is true sultans ought to abide by their word, and I am ready to keep
mine, by making your son happy in marriage with the princess my
daughter. But as I cannot marry her without some further proof of your
son being able to support her in royal state, you may tell him I will
fulfill my promise as soon as he shall send me forty trays of massy
gold, full of the same sort of jewels you have already made me a present
of, and carried by the like number of black slaves, who shall be led by
as many young and handsome white slaves, all dressed magnificently. On
these conditions I am ready to bestow the princess my daughter upon him;
therefore, good woman, go and tell him so, and I will wait till you
bring me his answer."

Aladdin's mother prostrated herself a second time before the sultan's
throne, and retired. On her way home, she laughed within herself at her
son's foolish imagination. "Where," said she, "can he get so many large
gold trays, and such precious stones to fill them? It is altogether out
of his p