une. But, alas! Your hope that we can give you relief is
doomed to disappointment. You will yourself appreciate our helplessness
when you have heard our story."

The owl requested him to relate it; which the Caliph did, just as we
have heard it.

IV.

When the Caliph had concluded his story, the owl thanked him, and said:

"Listen also to my tale, and learn that I am not less unfortunate than
yourself. My father is king of India. I, his only and unhappy daughter,
am named Lusa. That same Sorcerer, Kaschnur, who transformed you,
plunged me also into misery. One day he came to my father and demanded
me in marriage for his son Mizra. But my father, who is a quick
tempered man, had him thrown down-stairs. The wretch found means, by
assuming other forms, of approaching me; and one day, as I was taking
the air in my garden, he appeared, dressed as a slave, and handed me a
drink that changed me into this horrible shape. He brought me here
senseless from fright, and shouted in my ears with a terrible voice:
'Here you shall remain, ugly, despised by every creature, until death;
or till some man voluntarily offers to marry you in your present form!
Thus do I revenge myself on you and your proud father!' Since then many
months have passed. Lonely and sad, I live as a hermit within these
walls, abhorred by the world, despised even by animals, shut out from
all enjoyment of the beauties of nature, as I am blind by day, and only
at night, when the moon sheds its pale light over these walls, does the
veil fall from my eyes."

The owl finished her story, and once more brushed away with her wing
the tears which the recital of her sufferings had caused.

The Caliph was sunk in deep thought over the story of the Princess.

"Unless I am greatly in error," said he, "there is a hidden connection
between our misfortunes; but where shall I find the key to this
riddle?"

"O, Sire," the owl replied, "I suspect that too, for when I was a
little child it was foretold me by a soothsayer that a stork would
sometime bring me great good fortune. And I think I know a way by which
we can accomplish our own rescue."

In great surprise the Caliph asked her in what way she meant.

"The sorcerer who has done this wrong to us both," she answered, "comes
once a month to these ruins. Not far from here there is a room in which
he is accustomed to hold a banquet with many of his fellows. Many times
have I heard t