When the stone was pulled up, there appeared a cavity of about three or four feet deep, with a little door, and steps to go down lower. “Observe, my son,” said the African magician, “what I am going to say to you: go down into that cave, and when you are at the bottom of those steps, you will find a door open, which will lead you into a large vaulted place, divided into three great halls, in each of which you will see four large brass vessels placed on each side, full of gold and silver, but take care you do not meddle with them. Before you go into the first hall, be sure to tuck up your gown, and wrap it well about you, and then go through the second into the third without stopping. Above all things, have a care that you do not touch the walls, so much as with your clothes; for if you do, you will die instantly. At the end of the third hall, you will find a door, which leads into a garden planted with fine trees loaded with fruit; walk directly across the garden by a path which will lead you to five steps that will bring you upon a terrace, where you will see a niche before you, and in that niche a lighted lamp. Take the lamp down, and put it out; when you have thrown away the wick, and poured out the liquor, put it in your breast, and bring it to me. Do not be afraid that the liquor will spoil your clothes, for it is not oil, and the lamp will be dry as soon as it is thrown out. If you have a mind to any of the fruit of the garden, you may gather as much as you please.”
After these words, the magician drew a ring off his finger, and put it upon one of Aladdin’s telling him that it was a preservative against all evil, while he observed what he had prescribed to him. After this instruction, he said, “Go down boldly, child, and we shall both be rich all our lives.”
Aladdin jumped into the cave, went down the steps, and found the three halls just as the African magician had described them. He went through them with all the precaution the fear of death could inspire, if he failed to observe all that he was told very carefully; crossed the garden without stopping, took down the lamp from the niche, threw out the wick and the liquor, and, as the magician told him, put it in his bosom. But as he came down from the terrace, seeing it was perfectly dry, he stopped in the garden, to observe the fruit, which he only had a glimpse of in crossing it. All the trees were loaded with extraordinary fruit, of different colours on each tree: some bore fruit entirely white, and some clear and transparent as crystal; some pale red, and others deeper; some green, blue, and purple, and others yellow; in short, there was fruit of all colours. The white were pearls; the clear and transparent, diamonds; the deep red, rubies; the paler, ballas rubies; the green, emeralds; the blue, turquoises; the purple, amethysts; and those that were of yellow cast, sapphires; and so of the rest. All these fruits were so large and beautiful, that nothing was ever seen like them. Aladdin was altogether ignorant of their value; and would have preferred figs and grapes, or any other fruits, before them; and though he took them only for coloured glass of little value, yet he was so pleased with the variety of the colours, and the beauty and extraordinary size of the fruit, that he had a mind to gather some of every sort; and accordingly filled his two pockets, and the two new purses his uncle had bought for him with the clothes which he gave him; and as he could not put them in his pockets, he fastened them to his girdle. Some he wrapped up in the skirts of his gown, which was of silk, large and wrapping, and crammed his breast as full as it could hold.
Aladdin, having thus loaded himself with riches he knew not the value of, returned through the three halls with the same precaution, and made all the haste he could, that he might not make his uncle wait, and soon arrived at the mouth of the cave, where the African magician awaited him with the utmost impatience. As soon as Aladdin saw him, he cried out, “Pray, uncle, lend me your hand to help me out.” “Give me the lamp first,” replied the magician; “it will be troublesome to you.” “Indeed, uncle,” answered Aladdin, “I cannot now; it is not troublesome to me; but I will as soon as I am up.” The African magician was so obstinate, that he would have the lamp before he would help him up; and Aladdin, who had encumbered himself so much with his fruit, that he could not well get at it, refused to give him it till he was out of the cave. The African magician, provoked at this obstinate refusal of the lad, flew into a terrible passion, and threw a little of his incense into the fire, which he had taken care to keep in, and no sooner pronounced two magical words, but the stone which had closed the mouth of the cave moved into its place, with the earth over it, in the same manner as it lay at the arrival of the magician and Aladdin.
This action of the African magician’s plainly shewed him to be neither Aladdin’s uncle, nor Mustapha, the tailor’s brother, but a true African, a native of that part of the world. For as Africa is a country whose inhabitants delight most in magic of any other in the whole world, he had applied himself to it from his youth; and after about forty years’ experience in enchantments, works of geomancy, fumigations, and reading of magic books, he had found out that there was in the world a wonderful lamp, the possession of which would render him more powerful than any monarch in the world, if he could obtain it; and by a late operation of geomancy, he found out that this lamp lay concealed in a subterraneous place in the midst of China, in the situation, with all the circumstances, already described. Fully persuaded of the truth of this discovery, he set out from the farthest part of Africa, and, after a long and fatiguing journey, came to the town nearest to this treasure. But though he had a certain knowledge of the place where the lamp was, he was not permitted to take it himself, nor to enter the subterraneous place where it was, but must receive it from the hands of another person. For this reason, he addressed himself to Aladdin, whom he looked upon as a young lad of no consequence, and fit to serve his purpose; resolving, as soon as he got the lamp into his hands, to sacrifice poor Aladdin to his avarice and wickedness, by making the fumigation mentioned before, and saying those two magical words, the effect of which was to remove the stone into its place again, that he might have no witness of the transaction.
The blow he gave Aladdin, and the authority he assumed over him, was only to use him to fear him, and to make him obey him more readily, and give him the lamp as soon as he asked for it. But his too great precipitation in executing his wicked intention on poor Aladdin, and his fear lest somebody should come that way during their dispute, and discover what he wished to keep secret, produced an effect quite contrary to what he proposed to himself.
When the African magician saw that all his great hopes were frustrated for ever, he returned that same day for Africa; but went quite round the town, and at some distance from it, for fear lest some persons who had seen him walk out with the boy, seeing him come back without him, should entertain any jealousy of him, and stop him.
According to all appearances, there was no prospect of Aladdin being any more heard of. But the magician, when he contrived his death, had forgotten the ring he put on his finger, which preserved him, though he knew not its virtue; and it is amazing that the loss of that, together with the lamp, did not drive the magician to despair; but magicians are so much used to misfortunes, and events contrary to their wishes, that they do not lay them to heart, but still feed themselves all their lives with unsubstantial notions and chimeras.
As for Aladdin, who never suspected this bad usage from his pretended uncle, after all his caresses, and what he had done for him, his surprise is more easily to be imagined than expressed by words. When he found himself buried alive, he cried, and called out to his uncle to tell him he was ready to give him the lamp; but all in vain, since his cries could not be heard by him and he remained in this dark abode. At last when he had quite tired himself with crying, he went to the bottom of the steps, with a design to get into the garden, where it was light; but the door, which was opened before by enchantment, was now shut by the same means. Then he redoubled his cries and tears, and sat down on the steps, without any hopes of ever seeing the light again, and in a melancholy certainty of passing from the present darkness into that of a speedy death.
Aladdin remained in this state two days, without eating or drinking, and on the third day looked upon death as inevitable. Clasping his hands with an entire resignation to the will of God, he said, “There is no strength or power but in the great and high God.” In this action of joining his hands, he rubbed the ring which the magician put on his finger, and of which he knew not yet the virtue, and immediately a genie of an enormous size and frightful look rose out of the earth, his head reaching the vault, and said to him, “What wouldst thou have with me? I am ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of all who have the ring on thy finger; I, and the other slaves of that ring.”