The slave of the ring then caught up Aladdin, and in less time than it takes to tell he had carried him to Africa and had set him down in the apartment in the palace where the Princess was.
When the Princess saw Aladdin thus suddenly appear before her she gave a cry of joy and threw herself into his arms.
“The lamp!” cried Aladdin. “Where is the lamp?” for he wished to protect himself against the power of the magician.
“Alas,” cried the Princess, “I do not know where it is. Already I feared that all our misfortunes had come from my trading off that lamp to a beggar.” She then told Aladdin the whole story of how one had come offering new lamps for old, and of how her women had hunted up the old blackened lamp, and she had given it away for a new one.
Aladdin at once guessed that the beggar must have been the magician in disguise. “We will never be safe,” said he, “until we have that lamp in our possession again. Does the magician ever come here?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Princess; “he comes here every day and wearies me with his pretty speeches. He wishes me to marry him, but that I will never do.”
“Now, listen,” said Aladdin. “The next time the magician comes greet him pleasantly. Talk to him for awhile, and then offer him a glass of sherbet. In this sherbet you must first put a powder that I will give you. It is a sleeping-powder. After the magician drinks it he will fall into a deep sleep. You must then at once call me. Together we will search his clothing, for I feel sure he is afraid to leave the lamp anywhere, and carries it always about him. If we can once get hold of the lamp all of our troubles are at an end.”
The Princess promised to do exactly as Aladdin bade her, and then he gave her the powder, and hid himself in a room near by.
Not long after this the magician came, as usual, to sit and talk with the Princess. She met him with smiling looks, and was so pleasant and friendly that the magician was delighted. He hoped the Princess was beginning to love him and that before long she would consent to be his wife.
Presently the Princess took up a glass of sherbet in which she had already dissolved the powder. “I thought you might be thirsty,” said she, “and I prepared this sherbet for you; will you not drink it?”