My senses were slipping away, and I hardly knew what I did; but somehow or other I put my hand on the beast’s neck, and plucked from it a long hair; and as I did so the dog bounded away from me and stood cowering and quivering, as if in fear.
“At him!” screamed the witch—for it was a witch, beyond a doubt; and she rushed upon the dog and began to beat him violently with her stick. “At him again!” she screamed, but to my amazement the dog turned upon her, snarling; and at that moment the voice came again from the wasp’s nest, and it cried:
“A ring of the hair! Make a ring of the hair for your finger!”
I sat up and quickly wound about my finger, in a ring, the hair which I had plucked from the dog’s neck. The effect of this was startling. The witch shrieked, plainly in terror, and sprang away from the dog; and the brute came to me and cringed before me on the ground and whined; and behold, all the pain was gone from my shoulder.
“Command him to be himself again!” cried the voice from the wasp’s nest.
“Be yourself again!” I cried, not knowing what I said.
The Prince, Sitting on the Ground, Looks Up at a Genie
Instantly, in the flash of an eye, the dog was gone; and in his place stood, towering above me full seven yards or more, a monstrous creature in the shape of a man, chocolate brown in color, baldheaded except for a fringe of long hair at the base of his skull, and bare except for a cloth twisted about his middle, in which hung a gleaming scimitar. It was a genie. He was panting with anger or some other strong emotion, and as he panted jets of fire shot forth from his nostrils. His mighty chest heaved, and I shrank back in alarm; but he spread out his hands and bowed low before me. I remembered the ring of hair on my finger, and grew bolder.
The witch was creeping quietly away, stick in hand, toward the door of her hut; but as she reached it the genie stooped and caught her in his hand and held her fast. I sprang to my feet.
“Set free your victims!” I cried to her. “The wasps and the prisoner inside the nest! Release them! or by the power of the genie’s hair, I will command him to destroy you!”