on, Trumkard, throwing his right leg over his left, rested his
elbow on his knee, and, reposing his chin in his hand, cogitated. At
last he spoke.

"We cannot do better," said he, "than to apply to the Giant
Tur-il-i-ra."

This Giant, it will be remembered, was our old acquaintance, and the
friend of Ting-a-ling.

The Prince having readily consented to this proposition, it was agreed
that they should go to the Giant the next day, and implore his
assistance. The Prince would have started that night, but Trumkard had
great objections to night travelling, and he, being the best at an
argument, gained his point.

Early the next morning, the travellers set forth upon their journey,
well mounted upon two good horses. (It may be as well to state that
during the night, the Prince's dromedary had returned to its original
owner.)

As it will take two days of hard riding for our friends to reach their
destination, we will leave them, and return for a time to the gentle
Mahbracca, who, when she had left the Prince, had gone to her private
room to prepare an ingenious wire arrangement, which she called a
"prince-trap," in which he was to be inclosed and hung up before the
window of the Princess, for the amusement of this lively sorceress.

But what was her dismay when, on returning to the tower, the first
Yabouk she met told her of the escape of the Prince! Speechless with
apprehension, she ran to the place where he had passed through the side
of the mountain, and seeing his clothes upon the ground and the
indubitable signs of his egress, she became perfectly furious, and,
rushing back to the tower, commanded the dreadful Afrite who guarded her
door, and who now accompanied her, to enter and to bring down the
Princess, but on no account to injure her until she should be placed
alive in the cage that had been prepared for the Prince. The faithful
Afrite bowed his head in obedience, and having at one bound entered one
of the lower windows, he hurried up the stairs to the door of the
Princess's room. Bursting it open, he saw the Princess lying on the
floor in a swoon (into which she had fallen when she perceived that
Mahbracca was acting treacherously towards the Prince), and, supposing
her to be dead, he hastily plunged down the stairs to inform his
mistress, and rushing violently against the front door to burst it open
(as was his habit when doors were in his way), he immediately spitted
himself upon the Prince's sword of ada