delightful sighings of the
evening breeze, the murmurs of a brook, and the soft music of the
birds, she stretched herself upon the moss, and quickly fell into a
sound slumber. At this moment, the very enemy whom she had been so
anxious to escape lifted his head out of the marshes, beheld the
princess, and became so violently enamoured of the fair sleeper, that
he could not resist an inclination to kiss her; and, creeping forward,
he kissed her under the left ear. Now you know, friend Pepusch, that,
when the Leech-Prince sets about kissing a fair one, she is lost, for
he is the vilest bloodsucker in the world. So it happened on this
occasion: the Leech-Prince kissed the poor Gamaheh so long, that all
life left her, when he fell back gorged and intoxicated upon the moss,
and was forced to be carried home by his servants, who hastily rolled
out of their marshes. In vain the root mandragora toiled out of the
earth, and laid itself upon the wound inflicted by the treacherous
kisses of the Leech-Prince; in vain all the other flowers arose and
joined in his lamentations: she was dead. Just then it happened that
the genius, Thetel, was passing, and he too was deeply moved by
Gamaheh's beauty and her unlucky end. He took her in his arms, pressed
her to his breast, and endeavoured to breathe new life into her; but
still she awoke not from the sleep of death. Now, too, the genius
perceived the odious prince,--who was so drunk and unwieldly that his
servants had not been able to get him into his palace,--fell into a
violent rage, and threw a whole handful of rock-salt upon him, at which
he poured forth again all the purple blood which he had drawn from the
princess, and then gave up his spirit in a wretched manner, amidst the
most violent convulsions. All the flowers that stood around dipped
their vestments in this ichor, and stained them, in perpetual
remembrance of the murdered princess, with so bright a purple, that no
painter on earth can imitate it. You know, Pepusch, that the most
beautiful pinks and hyacinths grow in that cypress-grove where the
Leech-Prince kissed to death the fair Gamaheh.

"The genius, Thetel, now thought of departing, as he had much to do at
Samarcand before night, and cast a farewell look at the princess, when
he seemed as if fixed by magic to the spot, and gazed on the fair one
with deep emotion. Suddenly a thought struck him. Instead of going on
farther, he took the princess in his arms, and rose with