Dinarzade called the sultaness at the usual hour, saying, Sister, if
you be not asleep, pray do us the favour to tell us how the Lady of
Beauty restored the second calender to his former shape. You shall
hear it, said Scheherazade: The calender resumed his discourse thus:
The princess, the Lady of Beauty, went into her apartment, from
whence she brought in a knife, which had some Hebrew words engraven
on the blade; she made the sultan, the master of the eunuchs, the
little slave, and myself, go down into a private court of the
palace, and there left us under a gallery that went round it. She
placed herself in the middle of the court, where she made a great
circle, and within it she wrote several words in Arabian characters,
some of them ancient, and others of those which they call the
characters of Cleopatra.
When she had finished and prepared the circle as she thought fit,
she placed herself in the centre of it, where she began abjurations,
and repeated verses out of the Koran. The air grew insensibly dark,
as if it had been night, and the whole world about to be dissolved:
we found ourselves struck with a panic, and this fear increased the
more when we saw the genie, the son of the daughter of Eblis, appear
on a sudden in the shape of a lion of a frightful size.
As soon as the princess perceived this monster, You dog, said she,
instead of creeping before me, dare you present yourself in this
shape, thinking to frighten me? --And thou, replied the lion, art
thou not afraid to break the treaty which was solemnly made and
confirmed between us by oath, not to wrong or do one another any
hurt? --O! thou cursed creature! replied the princess, I can justly
reproach thee with doing so. --The lion answered fiercely, Thou
shalt quickly have thy reward for the trouble thou hast given me to
return: with that he opened his terrible throat, and ran at her to
devour her; but she, being on her guard, leaped backward, got time
to pull out one of her hairs, and by pronouncing three or four
words, changed herself into a sharp sword, wherewith she cut the
lion through the middle in two pieces.
The two parts of the lion vanished, and the head only was left,
which changed itself into a large scorpion. Immediately the princess
turned herself into a serpent, and fought the scorpion, who, finding
himself worsted, took the shape of an eagle, and flew away; but the
serpent at the same time took also the shape of an eagle, that was
black and much stronger, and pursued him, so that we lost the sight
of them both.
Some time after they had disappeared, the ground opened before us,
and out of it came forth a cat, black and white, with her hair
standing upright, and mewing in a frightful manner; a black wolf
followed her close, and gave her no time to rest. The cat, being
thus hard beset, changed herself into a worm, and being nigh to a
pomegranate that had accidentally fallen from a tree that grew on
the side of a canal, which was deep, but not broad, the worm pierced
the pomegranate in an instant, and hid itself, but the pomegranate
swelled immediately, and became as big as a gourd, which mounting up
to the roof of the gallery, rolled there for some space, backward
and forward, fell down again into the court, and broke into several
pieces.
The wolf, who had in the meantime transformed itself into a cock,
fell to picking up the seeds of the pomegranate one after another;
but finding no more, he came towards us with his wings spread,
making a great noise, as if he would ask us whether there was any
more seed. There was one lying on the brink of the canal, which the
cock perceiving as he went back, ran speedily thither; but just as
he was going to pick it up, the seed rolled into the river, and
turned into a little fish.
But I see day, sir, said Scheherazade; had it not come so suddenly,
I am persuaded what I had farther to say would have given your
majesty a great deal of satisfaction. Upon this she stopped, and the
sultan arose: but his thoughts being altogether taken up with such
unheard-of adventures, he was extremely impatient till he heard the
rest of the story.