Princess of Bengal, who no sooner understood that he came from the Prince of Persia, than she consented to what the prince, as she thought, desired of her.
The Indian, overjoyed at his success, and the ease with which he had accomplished his villainy, mounted his horse, took the princess behind him with the assistance of the housekeeper, turned the peg, and presently the horse mounted into the air with him and the princess.
At the same time the Sultan of Persia, followed by his court, was on the way from his own palace to the palace where the Princess of Bengal was left, and the Prince of Persia had ridden on before to prepare the Princess of Bengal to receive him, when the Indian, to defy them both and revenge himself for the ill-treatment he had received, passed over their heads with his prize.
When the Sultan of Persia saw this, he stopped. His surprise and affliction were the more keen because it was not in his power to make him repent of so outrageous an affront. He loaded him with a thousand imprecations, as also did all the courtiers, who were witnesses of so signal a piece of insolence and unparalleled villainy.
The Indian, little moved by their curses, which just reached his ears, continued his way, while the sultan, extremely mortified to find that he could not punish its author, returned to his palace.
But what was Prince Firouz Schah's grief to see the Indian carry away the Princess of Bengal, whom he loved so dearly that he could not live without her! At so unexpected a sight he was thunderstruck, and before he could make up his mind whether he should let fly all the reproaches his rage could invent against the Indian, or bewail the deplorable fate of the princess, or ask her pardon for not taking better care of her, the horse was out of sight. He could not resolve what to do, and so continued his way to the palace where he had left his princess.
When he came there, the housekeeper, who was by this time convinced that he had been deceived by the Indian, threw himself at his feet with tears in his eyes, and accused himself of the crime which he thought he had committed, and condemned himself to die.
