Moslemuna, in the singular, Moslem; which
the Mohammedans take as a title peculiar to themselves. The Europeans
generally write and pronounce it Mussulman.--Sale's _Koran_, c. ii, p.
16. 4to, 1734.]

[Footnote 4: These tales are furnished throughout with a certain
imaginary machinery. They have, as their foundation, the perpetual
intervention of certain fantastic beings, in most cases superior to
man, but yet subordinate to the authority of certain favored
individuals. These beings may, for our purpose, be generally divided
into genies, whose interference is generally for evil; peris, whose
presence indicates favorable issues to those whom they befriend; and
ghouls, monsters which have a less direct control over man's affairs,
but represent any monster repugnant or loathsome to mankind.]

The merchant, alarmed by the horrible figure of this giant, as well as
by the words he heard, replied in trembling accents: "How can I have
slain him? I do not know him, nor have I ever seen him."

"Didst thou not," replied the giant, "on thine arrival here, sit down,
and take some dates from thy wallet; and after eating them, didst thou
not throw the stones about on all sides?"

"This is all true," replied the merchant; "I do not deny it."

"Well, then," said the other, "I tell thee thou hast killed my son;
for while thou wast throwing about the stones, my son passed by; one
of them struck him in the eye, and caused his death,[5] and thus hast
thou slain my son."

[Footnote 5: "Now this, at first sight, seems a singular, if not a
ridiculous thing; but even this has its foundation in an Eastern
custom. It is in this manner that prisoners are sometimes put to
death; a man sits down at a little distance from the object he intends
to destroy, and then attacks him by repeatedly shooting at him with
the stone of the date, thrown from his two forefingers, and in this
way puts an end to his life."--Preface to Forster's edition of
_Arabian Nights._]

"Ah, sire, forgive me," cried the merchant.

"I have neither forgiveness nor mercy," replied the giant; "and is it
not just that he who has inflicted death should suffer it?"

"I grant this; yet surely I have not done so: and even if I have, I
have done so innocently, and therefore I entreat you to pardon me, and
suffer me to live."

"No, no," cried the genie, still persisting in his resolution, "I must
destroy thee, as thou hast killed my son."

At these words, he took the merchant