Aladdin, too, stared thunderstruck. “I—I do not know!” he faltered.
“You do not know?” cried the Sultan. “And my daughter! Where is she?”
“I do not know,” answered Aladdin again.
The Sultan was filled with rage. “You do not know!” he thundered. “Miserable wretch! was your castle only the work of enchantment? Have you carried off my daughter by your magic? Now unless you bring her back at once you shall surely die.”
Aladdin was in despair. He begged the Sultan to allow him forty days in which to search for the Princess, and to this the Sultan at last consented.
Aladdin at once set out on the search, but he did not know in which direction to go. He wandered about from one place to another, without learning anything about the fate of the Princess or his palace.
At last one day he found himself in a rocky spot beside the sea. In descending the rocks he slipped and caught his hand on a sharp point, and in so doing he rubbed the magician’s ring which he still wore, but which he had forgotten.
At once the genie of the ring appeared before him. “Master,” said he, “what wouldst thou have? I and the other slaves of the ring stand ready to serve thee.”
Aladdin was overjoyed to find that the ring still kept its magic powers. “I wish,” said he, “that you would bring back my palace and the Princess, or else take me where they are.”
“I cannot bring them back,” answered the slave of the ring, “for they have been carried away by the genie of the lamp, who is mightier than I, but I can take you where they are.”