The sultan growing impatient, said to him again, “Where is your palace, and what is become of my daughter?” Then Aladdin, breaking silence, said to him, “Sir, I see very well, and own that the palace which I have built is not in the same place it was, but is vanished; neither can I tell your majesty where it may be, but can assure you I have no hand in it.”
“I am not so much concerned about your palace,” replied the sultan; “I value my daughter ten thousand times before it, and would have you find her out, otherwise I will cause your head to be struck off, and no consideration shall prevent it.”
“I beg of your majesty,” answered Aladdin, “to grant me forty days to make my inquiries; and if in that time I have not the success I wish for, I will come again, and offer my head at the foot of your throne, to be disposed of at your pleasure.” “I give you the forty days you ask for,” said the sultan; “but think not to abuse the favour I shew you, by imagining you shall escape my resentment: for I will find you out in whatsoever part of the world you are.”
Aladdin went out of the sultan’s presence with great humiliation, and in a condition worthy of pity. He crossed the courts of the palace, hanging down his head, and in so great confusion that he durst not lift up his eyes. The principal officers of the court, who had all professed themselves his friends, and whom he had never disobliged, instead of going up to him to comfort him, and offer him a retreat in their houses, turned their backs on him, as much to avoid seeing him, as lest he should know them. But had they accosted him with a word of comfort, or offer of service, they would have no more known Aladdin. He did not know himself, and was no longer in his senses, as plainly appeared by asking everybody he met, and at every house, if they had seen his palace or could tell him any news of it.
These questions made everybody believe that Aladdin was mad. Some laughed at him, but people of sense and humanity, particularly those who had any connection of business or friendship with him, really pitied him. For three days he rambled about the city after this manner, without coming to any resolution, or eating anything but what some good people forced him to take out of charity.
At last, as he could no longer, in his unhappy condition, stay in a city where he had formerly made so fine a figure, he quitted it, and took the road to the country, and after he had traversed several fields in a frightful uncertainty, at the approach of night he came to a river side. There, possessed by his despair he said to himself “Where shall I seek my palace? In what province, country, or part of the world, shall I find that and my dear princess, whom the sultan expects from me? I shall never succeed; I had better free myself at once from so much fruitless fatigue and such bitter grief which preys upon me.” He was just going to throw himself into the river, but, as a good Mussulman, true to his religion, he thought he could not do it without first saying his prayers. Going to prepare himself, he went first to the river side to wash his hands and face, according to custom. But that place being steep and slippery, by reason of the water’s beating against it, he slid down and had certainly fallen into the river, but for a little rock which projected about two feet out of the earth. Happily also for him, he still had on the ring which the African magician put on his finger before he went down into the subterraneous abode to fetch the precious lamp, which had not been taken from him. In slipping down the bank he rubbed the ring so hard by holding on the rock, that immediately the same genie appeared whom he saw in the cave where the magician left him. “What wouldst thou have?” said the genie, “I am ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of all those that have that ring on their finger; both I and the other slaves of the ring.”
Aladdin, agreeably surprised at an apparition he so little expected in the despair he was in, replied, “Save my life, genie, a second time, either by shewing me to the place where the palace I have caused to be built now stands, or immediately transport it back where it first stood.” “What you command me,” answered the genie, “is not in my power; I am only the slave of the ring; you must address yourself to the slave of the lamp.” “If it be so,” replied Aladdin, “I command thee, by the power of the ring, to transport me to the place where my palace stands, in what part of the world soever it is, and set me down under the princess Badr-oul-boudour’s window.” These words were no sooner out of his mouth, but the genie transported him into Africa, to the midst of a large meadow, where his palace stood, a small distance from a great city, and set him exactly under the windows of the princess’s apartment, and then left him. All this was done almost in an instant.
Aladdin, notwithstanding the darkness of the night, knew his palace and the princess Badr-oul-boudour’s apartment again very well; but as the night was far advanced, and all was quiet in the palace, he retired to some distance, and sat down at the foot of a large tree. There, full of hopes, and reflecting on his happiness, for which he was indebted to pure chance, he found himself in a much more peaceable situation than when he was arrested and carried before the sultan, delivered from the danger of losing his life. He amused himself for some time with these agreeable thoughts; but not having slept for five or six days, he was not able to resist the drowsiness which came upon him, but fell fast asleep where he was.
The next morning, as soon as day appeared, Aladdin was agreeably awakened, not only by the singing of the birds which had roosted in the tree under which he had passed the night, but all those which perched in the thick trees of the palace garden. When he cast his eyes on that wonderful edifice, he felt an inexpressible joy to think he should soon be master of it again, and once more possess his dear princess Badr-oul-boudour. Pleased with these hopes, he immediately got up, went towards the princess’s apartment, and walked some time under her window, in expectation of her rising, that he might see her. During this expectation, he began to consider with himself from whence the cause of his misfortune proceeded; and after mature reflection, he no longer doubted that it was owing to his having put his lamp out of his sight. He accused himself of negligence, and the little care he took of it, to let it be a moment away from him. But what puzzled him most was, he could not imagine who had been so jealous of his happiness. He would soon have guessed this, if he had known that both he and his palace were in Africa, the very name of which would soon have made him remember the magician, his declared enemy; but the genie, the slave of the ring, had not made the least mention of the name of the place nor had Aladdin asked him.
The princess Badr-oul-boudour rose earlier that morning than she had done since her transportation into Africa by the magician, whose presence she was forced to support once a day because he was master of the palace; but she had always treated him so harshly, that he dared not reside in it. As she was dressing, one of the women, looking through the window, perceived Aladdin, and presently ran and told her mistress. The princess, who could not believe the news, went that moment herself to the window, and seeing Aladdin, immediately opened it. The noise the princess made in opening the window made Aladdin turn his head that way, who, knowing the princess, saluted her with an air that expressed his joy. “To lose no time,” said she to him, “I have sent to have the private door opened for you. Enter and come up;” and then shut the window.