‘The governess took me by chance and led me to her mistress, who ordered one of her women to go and pick a certain herb which she named and bring it to her. The girl promptly executed the commission and returned with a great handful of this herb. The lady took half of it, which she crushed herself, and made me swallow the juice of it. Then she said these words: “O young man, forsake the form of a stag and resume your natural shape.” I immediately became what I was before. I threw myself at the feet of the lady to thank her. She asked me my name and my country, and what had brought me to the kingdom of Cashmere. I answered all her questions without reserve.

‘When I had finished speaking, she said to me: “I am the daughter of a prince of the court to which you wish to go. I am called the Princess Ghulnaze; she who has changed you into a stag is my eldest sister and is called Mehrefza; she is a magician of redoubtable power. I alone could deliver you out of her power, and although I am her sister, if she perceives what I have just done I fear I shall experience her anger; but, happen what may, I shall never repent of having released you from your position. I intend you to be still further under obligation to me; I wish to help you make the prince your friend happy. I admit it is very difficult to secure his happiness, because, in order to do that, you must gain the confidence of the princess whom he loves, which you can only do by passing as a holy person at the court of Cashmere.”

‘“What are you saying, my princess?” I cried. “How am I to get that reputation?”

‘“You have only to follow exactly the instruc­tions I give you,” she replied. Thus saying she went to a wardrobe, whence she brought out a dervish’s dress, a girdle, and a little ebony box. “This,” she said, “is all that is necessary for you to succeed in your enterprise. Take these and go towards the town of Cashmere, which is not very far from here; but before entering, stop, remove your garments and rub your body all over with the grease which is in this box. Then you will take this dervish’s dress, and this magic girdle with which you will bind your loins, after which present yourself at the gates of the town. You will find guards there who will say to you, ‘O venerable religious, whence do you come?’ Answer, ‘I am a priest and I come from the extremities of the West on a pilgrimage to Cashmere to see the great temple.’ You know,” she added, “that this temple is a celebrated building revered by the people of that kingdom. As soon as you have told them that you have come from so far to see this temple, they will throw themselves at your feet, and will con­duct you with respect to the king, Togrul Bey, who will place you in the hands of the chief priest, Ahran, head of the temple of Cashmere. This high priest and all the other ministers of the idol will conduct you to the temple, which for beauty and magnificence is above all the palaces in the world, but it is surrounded by a ditch twenty feet deep, filled with water which boils without the aid of fire, and beyond the ditch there is a border of steel blades, red-hot, so that the temple seems inac­cessible. Then Ahran will say to you: ‘O phœnix of the century, you have passed through many dangers and fatigues before arriving here. The great temple, for which you have made so long and painful a journey, lies before you. But you cannot enter the sanctuary. You have only to offer your adorations from here, and then you will return to your country.’ You will reply to this speech that you have come to see the temple and that you wish to visit it. But the chief priest will tell you that in order to have that honour you must pass through the boiling water and cross the border. You will then utter a cry of joy and will go forward boldly. The grease with which you have rubbed yourself has the virtue of making the water harder than stone, and will prevent your being burnt. When you have entered the temple you will worship Heaven therein for a whole day; then you will rejoin Ahran, who will adopt you as a son. You will spend fourteen days with him, and the fifteenth, whilst he is asleep, you will rub his nose with a white powder I am going to give you. He will no sooner have smelt it than he will die, and the king will make you chief priest in his place. When you have attained this dignity, you will go and see the Prince of Cash­mere, who has been ill for some time, and given over by the doctors. You will breathe a prayer over him, and he will be immediately cured. The rumour of his cure will be spread throughout the peoples of Hindostan, who will look upon you as a saint, and Farrukhnaz, the Princess of Cashmere, charmed with your reputation, will wish to see you. I do not tell you the rest, it depends upon your skill.”

‘I promised to follow accurately the instructions of Ghulnaze, who put in my hands another little box containing the white powder, and a folded paper on which was written the prayer which I was to say over the Prince of Cashmere.

“Depart, my lord,” she said to me; “leave this palace immediately. I fear my sister may return. Alas!” she added, sighing, “the harm she may do me for having destroyed her magic is not what I most fear!”

‘I thanked Ghulnaze again in terms of deep gratitude. We were both very pleased with each other, and we would have wished to be longer together, but as we feared Mehrefza might come and surprise us, we were obliged to separate. I then took the road to Cashmere. As soon as I was near this town I dressed myself in the dervish’s costume, after having rubbed my body with the grease which I had in the ebony box. I then presented myself at the gates; the guards led me to the king, who put me in the hands of the chief priest. I crossed the water and the border of steel blades without harm to myself; then I entered the temple, where I saw the Sanctuary and worshipped Heaven therein.

‘I stayed in the temple until the following day. Then I went to seek out the head of the temple priests, who adopted me as his son and kept me about him. Finally, for fear of losing the fruit of all my pains by omitting any detail, I got rid of Ahran in the manner pre­scribed by Ghulnaze, and became high priest in his place. I shortly afterwards cured the Prince Farrukhrouz, which gave me such a high reputa­tion that you wished to see me. You know the rest, and what impression the pictures had on you which I had had painted in the hall where I received you. I watched you before showing myself, and I perceived that they gave you much to think about. This, charming Farrukhnaz,’ added Symorgue, ‘is what I thought I ought no longer to leave you in ignorance of. Forgive the artifice I have had recourse to in order to remove from you the false opinion you had of men, and in order to bind your lot with that of the most amiable of princes.’

The Princess of Cashmere blushed at this story, which showed her how deceived she had been, but the love she felt for the Prince of Persia pre­vented her being angry with the false dervish.

‘Finish telling us what you have done,’ she said. ‘What have you just been doing in the magician’s palace?’

‘Beautiful Farrukhnaz,’ he replied, ‘after having left you, I advanced towards the palace. I found the door open, I entered and saw no one, I only heard a plaintive voice, the sad accents of which drew me into a chamber whence it came. I found there, on a large sofa, a young lady having a yoke round her neck and iron chains on her feet; her arms were enclosed in a leather sack bound with ropes. The unhappy woman, bowed down under the weight of destiny, let her head fall sadly on her knees. I approached her out of pity, with the intention of comforting her. She raised her head, and I recognised in this unfortunate woman my liberator, the amiable Ghulnaze. I burst out into a fury at this touching sight. “O my queen,” I cried, “in what state do I find you? What barbarous hands can have laden you with irons?”

‘“O my dear Symorgue,” she replied, “is it you that I see? What evil genius brings you back hither? Alas! you will soon be the victim of my cruel sister. She discovered that I had saved you, and to punish me she keeps me in chains. I have been in them for a long time, but what distresses me more than all the rest is the danger to which you expose yourself. Fly at once; try to escape the inhuman Mehrefza.”

‘“What! my sultana,” I replied, “you wish me to fly and abandon you! Do you think me capable of such black ingratitude? Ah! I would a hundred times rather experience your sister’s anger. The most terrible death cannot terrify me when it is a question of extricating you from the situation in which I see you. Tell me, I pray you, what I must do to save you, and if the thing is possible I hope to succeed in it.”

‘“Since you are so courageous,” replied Ghul­naze, “my liberty depends on you. Go to the west side of the garden; you will find my sister there, asleep on the flower-strewn grass. She has under her head a satin pillow. If you can take this pillow from her without awaking her, the key of my chains is in it, you will save me; but if you wake Mehrefza you are lost. There is no other means of breaking my chains; no human effort can effect it.”