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Not A Pin To Choose
by
Before Abdallah marched off to the wars he and the princess were married, and for a whole fortnight nothing was heard but the sound of rejoicing. The city was illuminated from end to end, and all of the fountains ran with wine instead of water. And of all those who rejoiced, none was so happy as the princess, for never had she seen one whom she thought so grand and noble and handsome as her husband. After the fortnight had passed and gone, the army marched away to the wars with Abdallah at its head.
Victory after victory followed, for in every engagement the Emperor of India’s troops were driven from the field. In two months’ time the war was over and Abdallah marched back again–the greatest general in the world. But it was no longer as Abdallah that he was known, but as the Emperor of India, for the former emperor had been killed in the war, and Abdallah had set the crown upon his own head.
The little taste that he had had of conquest had given him an appetite for more, so that with the armies the Genie provided him he conquered all the neighboring countries and brought them under his rule. So he became the greatest emperor in all the world; kings and princes kneeled before him, and he, Abdallah, the fagot-maker, looking about him, could say: “No one in all the world is so great as I!”
Could he desire anything more?
Yes; he did! He desired to be rid of the Genie!
When he thought of how all that he was in power and might–he, the Emperor of the World–how all his riches and all his glory had come as gifts from a hideous black monster with only one eye, his heart was filled with bitterness. “I cannot forget,” said he to himself, “that as he has given me all these things, he may take them all away again. Suppose that I should lose my ring and that some one else should find it; who knows but that they might become as great as I, and strip me of everything, as I have stripped others. Yes; I wish he was out of the way!”
Once, when such thoughts as these were passing through his mind, he was paying a visit to his father-in-law, the king. He was walking up and down the terrace of the garden meditating on these matters, when, leaning over a wall and looking down into the street, he saw a fagot-maker–just such a fagot-maker as he himself had one time been–driving an ass–just such an ass as he had one time driven. The fagot-maker carried something under his arm, and what should it be but the very casket in which the Genie had once been imprisoned, and which he–the one-time fagot-maker–had seen the Genie kick over the tree-tops.
The sight of the casket put a sudden thought into his mind. He shouted to his attendants, and bade them haste and bring the fagot-maker to him. Off they ran, and in a little while came dragging the poor wretch, trembling and as white as death; for he thought nothing less than that his end had certainly come. As soon as those who had seized him had loosened their hold, he flung himself prostrate at the feet of the Emperor Abdallah, and there lay like one dead.
“Where didst thou get yonder casket?” asked the emperor.
“Oh, my lord!” croaked the poor fagot-maker, “I found it out yonder in the woods.”
“Give it to me,” said the emperor, “and my treasurer shall count thee out a thousand pieces of gold in exchange.”
So soon as he had the casket safe in his hands he hurried away to his privy chamber, and there pressed the red stone in his ring. “In the name of the red Aldebaran, I command thee to appear!” said he, and in a moment the Genie stood before him.
“What are my lord’s commands?” said he.