Part 13

The Sultan at once sent for Aladdin, and when he came the Sultan made the tailor’s son sit beside him, and talked with him as an equal. “My dear Aladdin,” said he, “you are indeed a very wonderful man, and it is only fitting that the most beautiful princess in the world should be your wife, and you shall be as dear to me as though you were my own son.”

That very day Aladdin and the Princess were married, and went to live in the magic palace, and as they loved each other dearly nothing could equal their happiness. Aladdin felt so secure in his good fortune that he never even thought of the magician or wondered whether he might some day come to claim the lamp.

The magician had indeed left China soon after his adventure with Aladdin. He journeyed back and forth over the earth in many places, and at last in his wanderings he came again to the city where he had met Aladdin. There he heard much talk of how a poor lad had married the daughter of the Sultan, and of the magnificent palace he had built. The magician never thought that Aladdin might be that poor lad, for he supposed he had perished in the hidden garden.

At last the magician became curious to see the palace that everyone was talking about, and he hired a horse and rode out to where it stood. As soon as he saw it he knew at once that it had been built by the genie of the lamp. He hastened home and got out his magic books, and from them learned that Aladdin was still alive, and that it was he who owned the palace and had become the Sultan’s son-in-law.

When the magician learned this he was filled with rage and at once began to plot and plan as to how he could get the lamp for himself, and destroy Aladdin.

In order to carry out this purpose he bought a number of fine new lamps and disguised himself in poor, mean clothing. He waited until one time when Aladdin had gone hunting with the Sultan, and then he started out through the city with his tray of lamps, calling, “New lamps for old! New lamps for old!”

Many people heard his cry and came hurrying out of their houses with old broken lamps, and offered them to the magician to exchange. He took them willingly, and for all of these old lamps he gave in return fine new ones. The people thought he must be crazy. A great crowd followed him, shouting and laughing.

At last the magician arrived in front of Aladdin’s castle. The Princess was sitting in an upper room with her attendants and yawning and feeling quite dull, because Aladdin was away. When she heard the noise and hubbub in the street she became curious. She sent one of her women to find out what the noise was about. She hoped it might be something amusing.

Presently the woman came back laughing. “Fancy!” cried she. “It is an old man with a tray of the most beautiful new lamps, and he is trading them for old ones.”

The Princess was much amused at this idea. “Where is that old blackened lamp that I have seen your master have?” asked she. “Look about and see if you can find it?”

Her woman began to search the palace, and at last they found the magic lamp hidden away in a corner of the treasure-room. They brought it to the Princess, and she at once caused the magician to be brought before her. “Here, old man,” said she, laughing. “Here is an old lamp. Will you give me a new one for it?”

When the magician saw the lamp he could hardly hide his joy. “Gladly, madam,” he answered. “Choose whichever of the lamps you will, and it shall be yours.”

The Princess chose one that pleased her well, and the magician took the old lamp and hurried away with it.

No sooner had he reached home than he shut himself up alone in his room and rubbed the lamp. At once the genie appeared.

“What do you wish?” cried he. “I and the other slaves of the lamp stand ready to serve you.”

“I wish,” cried the magician in a terrible voice, “that the palace of Aladdin and all that are in it shall be carried away to Africa.”

“To hear is to obey,” answered the genie, and immediately disappeared.

That evening the Sultan and Aladdin came home from their hunt. They rode along together, talking pleasantly, until they came within sight of the Sultan’s palace. Suddenly the Sultan drew rein and stared with blank surprise. The castle that Aladdin had built in a single night was gone. Not a sign of it was left.

“Your palace!” cried the Sultan. “Where is your palace?”

Aladdin, too, stared thunderstruck. “I—I do not know!” he faltered.

“You do not know?” cried the Sultan. “And my daughter! Where is she?”

“I do not know,” answered Aladdin again.

The Sultan was filled with rage. “You do not know!” he thundered. “Miserable wretch! was your castle only the work of enchantment? Have you carried off my daughter by your magic? Now unless you bring her back at once you shall surely die.”

Aladdin was in despair. He begged the Sultan to allow him forty days in which to search for the Princess, and to this the Sultan at last consented.

Aladdin at once set out on the search, but he did not know in which direction to go. He wandered about from one place to another, without learning anything about the fate of the Princess or his palace.

At last one day he found himself in a rocky spot beside the sea. In descending the rocks he slipped and caught his hand on a sharp point, and in so doing he rubbed the magician’s ring which he still wore, but which he had forgotten.

At once the genie of the ring appeared before him. “Master,” said he, “what wouldst thou have? I and the other slaves of the ring stand ready to serve thee.”

Aladdin was overjoyed to find that the ring still kept its magic powers. “I wish,” said he, “that you would bring back my palace and the Princess, or else take me where they are.”

“I cannot bring them back,” answered the slave of the ring, “for they have been carried away by the genie of the lamp, who is mightier than I, but I can take you where they are.”

The slave of the ring then caught up Aladdin, and in less time than it takes to tell he had carried him to Africa and had set him down in the apartment in the palace where the Princess was.

When the Princess saw Aladdin thus suddenly appear before her she gave a cry of joy and threw herself into his arms.

“The lamp!” cried Aladdin. “Where is the lamp?” for he wished to protect himself against the power of the magician.

“Alas,” cried the Princess, “I do not know where it is. Already I feared that all our misfortunes had come from my trading off that lamp to a beggar.” She then told Aladdin the whole story of how one had come offering new lamps for old, and of how her women had hunted up the old blackened lamp, and she had given it away for a new one.

Aladdin at once guessed that the beggar must have been the magician in disguise. “We will never be safe,” said he, “until we have that lamp in our possession again. Does the magician ever come here?”

“Oh, yes,” said the Princess; “he comes here every day and wearies me with his pretty speeches. He wishes me to marry him, but that I will never do.”

“Now, listen,” said Aladdin. “The next time the magician comes greet him pleasantly. Talk to him for awhile, and then offer him a glass of sherbet. In this sherbet you must first put a powder that I will give you. It is a sleeping-powder. After the magician drinks it he will fall into a deep sleep. You must then at once call me. Together we will search his clothing, for I feel sure he is afraid to leave the lamp anywhere, and carries it always about him. If we can once get hold of the lamp all of our troubles are at an end.”

The Princess promised to do exactly as Aladdin bade her, and then he gave her the powder, and hid himself in a room near by.

Not long after this the magician came, as usual, to sit and talk with the Princess. She met him with smiling looks, and was so pleasant and friendly that the magician was delighted. He hoped the Princess was beginning to love him and that before long she would consent to be his wife.

Presently the Princess took up a glass of sherbet in which she had already dissolved the powder. “I thought you might be thirsty,” said she, “and I prepared this sherbet for you; will you not drink it?”

The magician thanked her, and taking the goblet he drank the sherbet at one draught. Almost at once his head dropped back on the cushions and he sank in a deep sleep.

The Princess did not delay a moment in calling Aladdin. He came in haste, and together they searched the garments of the magician. It did not take them long to find the lamp, which was hidden in his vest.

Aladdin rubbed it, and the genie of the lamp appeared before him.

“What dost thou wish?” he cried. “I and all the other slaves of the lamp stand ready to obey thee.”

“First,” said Aladdin, “I wish this magician carried away to the uttermost parts of the earth, and I wish him never to be allowed to come within a hundred miles of the lamp again. Secondly, I wish my palace to be returned to the place from which it was taken.”

“To hear is to obey,” answered the genie.

He disappeared with the magician, and as the magician never was seen again he probably never escaped from the ends of the earth.

As for the palace it and all that was in it were returned to the place where it first stood, and the Sultan was so delighted to see his daughter again that he gladly forgave Aladdin. The tailor’s son was raised to the greatest honors in the kingdom, and upon the Sultan’s death he became Sultan, and lived happy forever after with his beautiful wife, Buddir al Baddoor.

THE COBBLER AND THE FAIRIES

There was once a cobbler who worked hard at his trade, and yet never seemed to get on in the world.

One evening he took his last piece of leather and cut out a pair of shoes and laid the pieces neatly on his bench, expecting to finish them in the morning.

“There,” said he to his wife; “that is my last piece of leather, and I will have no money to buy more until those shoes are made and sold.”

The next morning he went to his shop early to begin work. What was his surprise to find that in the night the pieces had been made up into a fine pair of shoes. He took them up and examined them, and there was not a fault to be found with them. It was indeed much better work than the cobbler could have done. Not even the king’s shoemaker could have done better.

The cobbler set the shoes out where they could be seen, and he soon had a customer for them. This customer was a very rich man. “This is a very fine pair of shoes,” said the rich man after he had examined them. “I will take them, and you may make me two more pairs.” He then paid the cobbler well, and went away, carrying the shoes with him.

The cobbler was ready to dance with joy. He hurried out and bought more leather, and by evening he had cut out two more pairs of shoes. He left the pieces lying on the bench as before.

When he came to the shop the next morning, he found both pairs finished and standing side by side on the bench, and they were just as well made as the other pair had been. The rich man was delighted with them, and he brought a friend to the shop with him, who also ordered two pairs of shoes.

So it went on. Soon the cobbler had all the customers he could attend to, and they paid high prices for his shoes, for they were better than could be bought anywhere else.

But the cobbler puzzled and puzzled about who was helping him. No matter how late he sat up, nor how early he rose in the morning, he never saw anyone, and he never heard a sound.

At last he determined he would watch all night and find out who was doing the work. So when his wife went off to bed he hid himself behind some clothes that were hanging in the corner, and stayed there as still as a mouse. No one would have known there was anybody in the room. The moon shone in at the window and all the house was still.

Suddenly he saw two little brown fairy-men there in the room, but where they came from he could not tell. It was cold winter weather, but neither of them had on coats or shoes or trousers. They picked up the pieces of leather and looked at them, and then they sat down cross-legged and began to work. They fitted and sewed and hammered, so fast that in a short time all the shoes were done. The two little men set them in a row on the bench, and nodded to each other as though they were well pleased, and then they went as they came, without a sound, and the cobbler could not tell what had become of them.

The next day the cobbler told his wife all that he had seen the night before. The two talked it over for a long time.

“We ought to do something to show our gratitude to the little men,” said his wife. “How would it be if I made a little shirt and a suit for each of them, and you can make them each a pair of shoes.”

To this the cobbler agreed. He went out and bought some fine cloth and cambric, and buttons and also some soft thin leather.

Then his wife set to work and made two little shirts and two little suits all complete, even to the pockets and buttonholes, and the cobbler made two tiny pairs of shoes. When all was finished, they laid the clothes out on the bench, and that night they left a light burning and hid themselves in the corner behind the clothes, to see what would happen. The clock ticked on, and suddenly they saw the two little brown men there in the room, moving quietly about, though how they had come there neither the cobbler nor his wife knew.

The little men went to the bench where the leather was generally laid out, and there, instead of leather pieces were the two little suits of clothes and the two little pairs of shoes. The brownies took up the clothes piece by piece and examined them; they held them up and turned them this way and that. Last of all they put the clothes on, and they fitted exactly. Then they began to dance with glee, and to sing:

“How fine we be, how fine we be! Now we never will work again!”

So singing they danced about over tables and chairs and benches and so on out the door into the night, and they never were seen again.

But the cobbler prospered, and in time became a very rich man.

CINDERELLA

There was once a girl named Ella who was so gentle and beautiful that everyone who knew her loved her, except those who should have loved her best, and those were her stepmother and her stepsisters.

Her own mother had died while she was quite young, and then her father had married again. This new wife had two daughters of her own, and she wished them to have everything and Ella to have nothing. The stepmother dressed her own children in fine clothes, and they sat about and did nothing all day, but Cinderella worked in the kitchen and had nothing but rags to wear, and because she often sat close to the ashes to warm herself her sisters called her Cinderella.

Now the King and Queen of that country had only one son, and they were very anxious for him to marry, but he had never seen anyone whom he wished to have for a bride. At last they determined to give a great ball, and to ask to it all the fairest ladies in the land. They hoped that among them all the Prince might see someone whom he would choose. All the grand people of the city were invited, and Cinderella’s stepmother and her stepsisters were asked with all the rest.

The stepsisters were very much excited over it. They were both so handsome that they hoped one of them might be chosen by the Prince. They had often watched from the windows to see him riding by, and he was so gay and gallant that anyone might have been glad to marry him.

All sorts of fine things were bought for the sisters to wear, satins and velvets and laces and jewels, feathers for their hair, and glittering fans for them to carry, and the stepmother’s dress was no less fine than theirs.

Cinderella sighed and sighed. “I wish I might go to the ball, too, and see that handsome Prince and all the lovely ladies,” she said.

“You!” cried the sisters, laughing. “A pretty sight you would be at the ball; you with your rags and your sooty hands.”

“Go scour your pots and pans,” cried the stepmother. “That is all you are fit for, you cinder-wench.”

So Cinderella went back to her work, but as she scrubbed and rubbed the tears ran down her cheeks so fast she could hardly see.

The night of the ball the sisters dressed themselves in all their finery and came into the kitchen to show themselves to Cinderella; they hoped to make her envious. They swept up and down the room and spread their gowns and smiled and ogled while Cinderella admired them. After they tired of her admiration they and the stepmother stepped into a fine coach and rolled gayly away to the ball.

But Cinderella sat in a corner by the fire and wept and wept.

Suddenly, as she wept, a little old woman in a high-pointed hat and buckled shoes appeared in the kitchen, and where she came from no one could have told. Her eyes shone and twinkled like two stars, and she carried a wand in her hand.

“Why are you so sad, my child,” she asked; “and why do you weep so bitterly?”

Cinderella looked at her with wonder. “I am weeping,” she said, “because my sisters have gone to the ball without me, and because I wished to go too.”

“Then dry your tears,” said the little old woman, “I am your fairy godmother, and if you are a good girl and do exactly as I say, there is nothing you can wish for that you shall not have. Run to the garden and fetch me a pumpkin; and let me see the mousetrap; if there are six fine fat mice in it they will be of use.”

Cinderella got out the mousetrap as she was told, and there were exactly six mice in it. She also hurried out to the garden and fetched the biggest, roundest pumpkin she could find.

“That is well,” said the godmother. “And now the rattrap.”

Cinderella brought the trap and there was a rat in it.

“And now,” said the godmother, “we are ready to begin.”

She touched the pumpkin with her wand, and at once it turned into a magnificent golden coach, lined throughout with pale yellow satin; she touched the mice and they became six handsome sleek gray horses to draw the coach. She touched the rat with her wand and he was turned into a coachman in a livery of scarlet and gold lace. He mounted to the box of the coach, and gathered up the reins, and sat there, whip in hand, waiting.

“Footmen! Footmen!” cried the godmother impatiently. “Where shall we get them!” Her sharp eyes glanced this way and that, and presently, in the crack of the wall, she espied two lizards. “The very thing,” said she. A touch of her wand and they were changed to footmen with powdered wigs and cocked hats. They sprang up and took their places behind the coach. “And now,” said the fairy, “all is ready, and no one has a finer coach in which to go to the ball. Do you not agree with me?”

“But, Godmother, my rags! I could not go to the ball in rags, no matter how fine my coach,” cried Cinderella.

“Wait a bit! I have not done yet.” The godmother touched Cinderella’s rags with her wand, and at once they were changed to a gown of white satin embroidered with pearls. There were diamonds in her hair, and her clumsy shoes were changed to glass slippers that exactly fitted her little feet.

Cinderella wondered, and her heart was filled with joy. The satin gleamed about her like moonshine, and the diamonds shone as bright as the tears she had shed.

“Now, my child, you can go to the ball,” said the godmother. “But remember this: My fairy charm can only last till twelve o’clock. At the last stroke of twelve these fine clothes will change into rags; the coach will again become a pumpkin, the horses mice, and the coachman and footman a rat and lizards as they were before; so by twelve you must be home again.”

Cinderella promised to obey, and then she stepped into the coach and rolled away to the ball.

When she reached the palace the music was sounding and the Prince was about to choose a partner for the dance. All the ladies waited anxiously, each hoping she would be the one to be chosen. Many beauties were there, and it was hard to say which was the loveliest. But when Cinderella entered the room no one had eyes for anyone but her. She was far fairer than the fairest, as the crescent moon is lovelier than the stars.

The Prince came to her and took her by the hand. “You shall be my partner in the dance,” said he, “for never have I seen anyone as fair as you.”

From then on the Prince would dance with no one but Cinderella, and none could wonder nor blame him, for she was so beautiful that the heart melted at sight of her.

The Prince begged her to tell him her name and whence she came, but she would not, and when the castle clock struck the quarter before twelve she managed to slip away from him, and run out to her coach. She sprang into it, the rat coachman cracked his whip, and away they went, and the Prince did not know what had become of her.

When the stepsisters came home, Cinderella was again sitting in the corner beside the fire, dressed in her rags.

“Was it a beautiful ball?” she asked.

“Yes, it was a fine ball indeed,” said the sisters, and they began to tell her about it.

“And whom did the Prince dance with?” asked Cinderella.

“Oh, he danced with a strange princess who came in just after the ball began. The Prince had bowed to us and smiled, and he might have chosen one of us as his partner, but after she came he had eyes for no one else. She must be a very great princess indeed, but no one could find out who she was, not even the Prince himself, though he begged and entreated her to tell him. She slipped away before the ball was over, and no one knew where she went. The Prince was like one distracted. To-morrow night another ball is to be given, for the Prince hopes the Princess may come again and that he may find out who she is.”

Cinderella sighed. “Oh, my dear sisters, let me go with you to-morrow, I beg of you. One of your old dresses would do for me to wear.”

But the sisters laughed and jeered. “You the cinder-wench!” they cried. “No, no, the kitchen is the place for you. We would die of shame if any of those fine folk saw you.” Then they bade her unfasten their dresses and help them to bed. They must get to sleep and be fresh and handsome for the second ball.

The next night the stepsisters dressed again, and drove away to the ball, and more than ever did Cinderella long to go with them.

Scarcely had they gone, however, when the fairy godmother appeared in the kitchen.

“Well,” said she, “I suppose you would like to go to this ball, too.”

“Oh, dear Godmother, if I only could!” cried Cinderella.

The godmother bade Cinderella bring her the pumpkin, the mice, the rat, and the lizards. Again she changed them into the grand coach, the horses, driver, and footmen, all complete. She then touched Cinderella’s rags with her wand, and they were changed into a dress even more beautiful than the one she had worn the night before. She stepped into the coach and rolled away to the ball.

The Prince had been watching for her impatiently, and the moment she entered the room he hurried forward and took her by the hand.

“Why did you leave me so suddenly?” he asked her. “I sought you everywhere and could not sleep all night for thinking of you.”

He then again led her to a place in the dance, and he would dance with no one else.