Thus reckoning, he prised out the stopper with his knife, and turning the vessel upside down looked for the contents to follow. Great was his astonishment when nothing but smoke came out of it. The smoke rose in a thick black column and spread like a mist between earth and sky, till presently, drawing together, it took form; and there in its midst stood a mighty Genie, whose brows touched heaven while his feet rested upon ground. His head was like a dome, his hands were like flails, and his legs like pine trees; his mouth was black as a cavern, his nostrils were like trumpets, his eyes blazed like torches, and his wings whirled round and over him like the simoom of the desert.
At so fearful a sight all the fisherman's courage oozed out of him; but the Genie, perceiving him, cried with a loud voice, "O, Solomon, Prophet of God, slay me not, for never again will I withstand thee in word or deed!"
"Alas!" said the fisherman, "I am no prophet; and as for Solomon, he has been dead for nearly two thousand years. I am but a poor fisherman whom chance has knocked by accident against thy door."
"In that case," answered the Genie, "know that presently thou wilt have to die."
"Heaven forbid!" cried the fisherman; "or, at least, tell me why! Surely it might seem that I had done thee some service in releasing thee."
"Hear first my story," said the Genie, "then shalt thou understand."
"Well, if I must!" said the fisherman, resigning himself to the inevitable; "but make it short, for truly I have small stomach left in me now for the hearing of tales."
"Know, then," said the Genie, "that I am one of those spirits which resisted the power and dominion of Solomon; and when, having brought into submission all the rest of my race, he could not make me yield to him either reverence or service, he caused me to be shut up in this bottle, and sealing it with his own seal cast it down into the depths of the sea.