"Wretched Bennaskar!" answered I, "I knew not that my sleep had continued a month; but, if it be so long since I saw the genius Macoma in this chamber, I thank Mahomet that he hath so long hidden me from the persecutions of Bennaskar."
"Haughty Princess!" answered the vile Bennaskar from the closet, "my slave shall inspire you with humbler words." Whereupon he ordered the black slave to give me fifty lashes with the chabouc.
But it is needless, O Prince, to repeat the various designs of that wretch. For three months was I thus confined, and Bennaskar having exercised, through the hands of his slave, the cruelties of his heart, used at length, when he found me persist in my resolution, to come forth, and by his presence deprive me of sensation. The adventures of the third month you have heard from the mouth of Mahoud; I shall therefore only continue my narrative from the time that he left me with the book in my hand.
Bennaskar, seeing his friend Mahoud had left him, went out, and soon returned again with him, and taking him into the closet, in a moment came forth, and, touching me, he said, "Come, fair Princess, the enchantments of Macoma are now at an end, and thou art given up entirely to Bennaskar."
I shrieked at his words, hoping the Cadi would hear me, but in vain. Bennaskar ran with me through the vaulted passage, and found myself with him in an extended plain.
"Wretch!" said the genius Macoma, who that moment appeared, "hast thou dared to disobey my commands, and remove the Princess from the vaulted chamber, where even thy mistress yielded to my power? But I thank thee: what the imprudent Mahoud could not accomplish against thee thou hast effected thyself."
As she spake, the form of Bennaskar perished from the face of the plain, and his body crumbled to atoms and mixed with the dust of the earth; but from his ashes the enchantress Ulin arose, and with an enraged visage turned towards me and said, "Thou art still the victim of my power; and since Bennaskar is no more, go, sweet Princess, and join thy delicate form to the form of thy preserver Mahoud, whom I designed for the flames; but, my will being opposed, he is rescued thence, and now defiles the air of Tarapajan with his pestiferous breath."
Such, Sultan of India, were the consequences of my imprudence; and thus are our sex, by the smallest deviations, often led through perpetual scenes of misery and distress.
"Lovely Princess of Cassimir," said the Sultan Misnar, "I have felt more anxiety during this short interval in which you have related your adventures than in all the campaigns I have made. But suffer us, O Princess, to add a further trouble to you by a second request; for I am as anxious to hear by what misfortune you were enclosed in the tomb of death as I was to know in what manner you were subjected to the villanous cruelties of the wretched Bennaskar."