But while they were still running on in this fashion, and the elderly Highwayman was cheering faintly and the one-armed young man was cheering lustily, a loud roar came from the genie, and we saw that the witch had slipped from his grasp and was even now dashing in at the door of the hut. She shut it behind her with a bang, and the one-armed youth pounded against it in vain.
“The stolen hair!” he cried. “The genie’s hair which she stole from me! I must get it back! Don’t let her get away!”
The Genie Breathes Fire Upon the Witch’s Hut
The genie opened his great mouth and roared with anger; then he stooped down over the hut, and I saw that he was breathing fire upon the roof from his nostrils; and as the sparks caught in the dry thatch, he began to walk around the hut, bending and breathing fire upon its roof from place to place. In a few moments it was ablaze from end to end; the walls caught; and as I held my fair lady trembling close beside me, the house arose in flames, crackling and roaring, and showering sparks upward into the twilight sky.
“Oh!” said my fair one, clinging to my arm. “The poor witch! Save her! She will be burned to death!” But the genie’s thunderous laugh was her only answer.
We watched until the fire was out, and there remained only a heap of smoking ashes; and the witch was gone.
“Oh, the poor thing!” said my beautiful lady.
“Isn’t it terrible?” said her nine sisters, among themselves. “It’s just too terrible for anything! It is terrible, isn’t it? It’s simply terrible, it is, isn’t it?”
The one-armed youth stepped up to the ruin and appeared to be looking among the ashes near what was once the door. He looked for a long time, and then he suddenly straightened up and cried, “Ah!”
He came toward us, and he was holding up in his hand what seemed to be a necklace.