from whence he perceived the sultan approaching, and got down soon enough to receive him at the foot of the great staircase. “Aladdin,” said the sultan, “I cannot speak to you till I have seen and embraced my daughter.” The happy father was then led to the princess’s apartment and embraced her with his face bathed in tears of joy. The sultan was some time before he could open his lips, so great was his surprise and joy to find his daughter again, after he had given her up for lost; and the princess, upon seeing her father, let fall tears of rapture and affection.
At last the sultan broke silence, and said: ‘‘I would believe, daughter, your joy to see me makes you seem as little changed as if no misfortune had befallen you; yet I cannot be persuaded but that you have suffered much alarm; for a large palace cannot be so suddenly transported as yours has been, without causing great fright and apprehension. I would have you tell me all that has happened, and conceal nothing from me.”
The princess, who took great pleasure in giving the sultan the satisfaction he demanded, said: “If I appear so little altered, I beg of your majesty to consider that I received new life yesterday morning by the presence of my dear husband and deliverer, Aladdin, whom I looked upon and bewailed as lost to me. My greatest suffering was to find myself forced not only from your majesty, but from my dear husband; not only from the love I bore him, but from the uneasiness I laboured under through fear that he, though innocent, might feel the effects of your anger. As to what relates to my transportation, I was myself the innocent cause of it.” To persuade the sultan of the truth of what she said, she gave him a full account of how the African magician had disguised himself, and offered to change new lamps for old ones; how she had amused herself in making that exchange; how the palace and herself were carried away and transported
[ 187 ]
