V
54. Next day the sultan did as the magician had advised him, and asked for the great tent.
Prince Ahmed replied: "Though it is with the greatest reluctance, I will not fail to ask of my wife the favor your majesty desires, but I will not promise you to obtain it; and, if I should not have the honor to come again to pay you my respects, that will be the sign that I have not had success. But, beforehand, I desire you to forgive me and to consider that you yourself have reduced me to this extremity."
55. "Son," replied the sultan of the Indies, "I should be very sorry if what I ask of you should deprive me of the pleasure of seeing you again. Your wife would show that her love for you was very slight if she, with the power of a fairy, should refuse so small a request as this."
The prince went back, and was very sad for fear of offending the fairy. She kept pressing him to tell her what was the matter.
56. At last he said: "Madam, you may have observed that hitherto I have been content with your love and have never asked you any other favor. Consider, then, I conjure you, that it is not I, but the sultan, my father, who begs of you a tent which is large enough to shelter him, his court, and his army from the violence of the weather, and which a man may carry in his hand. But remember it is the sultan, my father, who asks this favor."
57. "Prince," replied the fairy, smiling, "I am sorry that so small a matter should disturb you."
Then the fairy sent for her treasurer, to whom she said: "Nourgihan, bring me the largest tent in my treasury."
58. Nourgihan returned presently with the tent—which she could not only hold in her hand, but in the palm of her hand when she shut her fingers—and presented it to her mistress, who gave it to Prince Ahmed.
59. When Prince Ahmed saw the tent which the fairy called the largest in her treasury, he thought that she jested with him. Peribanou, perceiving this, said: "Nourgihan, go and set the tent up so that the prince may judge whether it be large enough for the sultan, his father."
60. The treasurer immediately carried it a great way off; and when she had set it up, one end reached to the palace, and the prince found it large enough to shelter two greater armies than that of the sultan.
He said to Peribanou: "I ask my princess a thousand pardons for my incredulity. After what I have seen, I believe there is nothing impossible to you."
61. The treasurer took down the tent and brought it to the prince, who took it, and the next day mounted his horse and went with his attendants to his father's court.
The sultan, who was persuaded that there could not be such a tent as he had asked for, was greatly surprised when he saw it.
62. But he was not yet satisfied, and he requested his son to bring him some water from the Fountain of Lions, which was a sovereign remedy for all sorts of fevers. By the aid of the fairy Peribanou, Prince Ahmed found this fountain, passed safely through all the perils of the way, and returned to the sultan with the water he had required.
63. The sultan showed outwardly all the signs of great joy, but secretly became more jealous, and by the advice of the magician he said to Prince Ahmed: "Son, I have one thing more to ask of you, after which I shall expect nothing more from your obedience nor from your interest with your wife. This request is to bring me a man not above a foot and a half high, whose beard is thirty feet long, who carries upon his shoulders a bar of iron of five hundredweight, which he uses as a quarterstaff."
64. Prince Ahmed, who did not believe that there was such a man in the world as his father described, would gladly have excused himself; but the sultan persisted in his demand, and told him the fairy could do more incredible things.