rmations, and she was a serpent, a scorpion, a lizard, a lioness
in succession, but I leapt perpetually into fresh rings of fire and of
witched water; and at the fiftieth transformation, she fell on the floor
exhausted, a shuddering heap. Seeing that, I ran from her to the aviary
in her palace, and hurried over a story of men to the birds, that rocked
them on their perches with chestquakes of irresistible laughter. Then
flew I back to the Princess, and she still puffing on the floor,
commenced wheedling and begging the ring of me, stinting no promises. At
last she cried, 'Girl! what is this ring to thee without beauty? Thy
beauty is in my keeping.'

And I exclaimed, 'How? how?' smitten to the soul.

She answered, 'Yea; and I can wear it as my own, adding it to my own,
when thou'rt a hag!'

My betrothed! I was on the verge of giving her the ring for this secret,
when a violent remote laughter filled the inner hollow of my ears, and it
increased, till the Princess heard it; and now the light of my casement
was darkened with birds, the birds of Goorelka, laughing as on a wind of
laughter. So I opened to them, and they darted in, laughing all of them,
till I could hold out no longer, and the infection of laughter seized me,
and I rolled with it; and the Princess, she too laughed a hyaena-laugh
under a cat's grin, and we all of us remained in this wise some minutes,
laughing the breath out of our bodies, as if death would take us. Whoso
in the City of Oolb heard us, the slaves, the people, and the King,
laughed, knowing not the cause. This day is still remembered in Oolb as
the day of laughter. Now, at a stroke of the hour the laughter ceased,
and I saw in the chamber a crowd of youths and elders of various ranks;
but their visages were become long and solemn as that of them that have
seen a dark experience. 'Tis certain they laughed little in their lives
from that time, and the muscles of their cheeks had rest. So I caught
down my veil, and cried to the Princess, 'My father is among these; point
him out to me.'

Ere she replied one stepped forth, even Feshnavat, my father, and called
me by name, and knew me by a spot on the left arm, and made himself known
to me, and told me the story of my dead mother, how she had missed her
way from the caravan in the desert, and he searching her was set upon by
robbers, and borne on their expeditions. Nothing said he of the sorceries
of Goorelka, and I, not wishing to provoke the Prin