The magician was a very mighty and ancient man, called Bulbo. By his strange, black magic he had built himself an impregnable castle and had tamed a great river, and made it surround his castle with a deep, impassable moat. No army could ever pass these waters, or scale his ramparts of yellow sand; if he himself wanted to go out, he rode on the back of a big brown bat. All the creatures of Night, the bats and owls and toads and many wicked faery sprites, dwelt with him in his castle and were his body-guard.
Now it happened that Bulbo the Magician had left his castle and was riding through the air high over Orient Land, in the night-time, as was his wont. He was unusually far from home; in fact, the first light of dawn surprised him just as his bat was fluttering over the royal gardens. The nightingale had stopped singing, and the birds of day had begun, the pansies and daisies and dreamy lotos-flowers were just waking up. Then he saw what seemed to him the loveliest flower of all—it was Princess Zarashne sitting alone beside the gold-fish fountain, waiting for Selim Pasha.
Bulbo spurred his bat, and swooped down among the rose-bushes like a swift, black shadow. Before Princess Zarashne knew what had happened, he had seized her and placed her before him in the saddle between the fluttering wings of the bat, and they were rising up, up, up into the blue morning air!
But just at this moment, the palace-gates swung open, and with a flourish of trumpets and a shout of greeting, Selim Pasha and his soldiers appeared. Great was their horror and dismay when they found the garden empty, and heard Princess Zarashne cry “Help, help!” far above their heads! Selim Pasha bared his sword and tried to reach the bat as it rose, but in vain—in the twinkling of an eye, the sorcerer had flown a thousand miles away.
“Bore her away to his castle in the desert”
In Bulbo’s palace, Princess Zarashne found herself a prisoner. She was not cruelly treated, for Bulbo liked her and made her queen of his household. She had nothing to do but water the dark poppies and nightshade and beautiful poisonous berry-bushes that grew in his garden, and make necklaces of the pearls and shells that the river laid at her feet on the yellow sands. But she was very unhappy, for her only companion was a monkey who followed her about as her servant, carrying her tea-cup and her shawls and never saying a word; and she wept to think of the days when Selim Pasha had walked with her by the gold-fish fountain, while the white mouse danced and the bird of paradise sang to her—for she never hoped to see the Prince of all Orient Land again.
Meanwhile, Selim Pasha the Proud was inconsolable without his beloved Princess. His soldiers could not help him against Bulbo’s power, and no prophet, no wise man, no general could tell him how to get Princess Zarashne back. So he put on a black cloak, and put black ashes on his turban, and would not be comforted. When his people saw him in the street, and shouted: “Hail, Selim Pasha the Proud!” he would hide his face in his cloak and say: