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he was at first inclined to regard his night’s adventure as a blissful dream; but when he saw on his finger the signet-ring which his lady had placed there he had no doubt of the reality of that strange experience, and made up his mind not to leave the city until he had solved the mystery.

The princess was equally astonished, when she awoke, to find only a ring to confirm her recollections of the night. In time she became with child; but the sultan, her father, being passionately fond of her, could not make up his mind to kill her, as was his duty, since she had no brothers. Her strange story, and the sight of the signet-ring which her unknown love had given her, made him resolve to spare her life; for he knew the power and malice of the Jân, and saw their hand in the matter. So when his daughter had been safely delivered of a son, he sent her and the child into exile without other attendants than one aged nurse.

Now the town to which she was sent happened to be the same in which her lover still dwelt in the hope of obtaining news of her. She abode there in obscurity devoting herself to the child, who would let no one but his mother carry him, and cried whenever any one else tried to take him up. One day, when the exiled princess was tired of fondling him, she told her female attendant to take him out of doors. While the nurse was carrying him in the streets, she chanced to pass a place where the young Bedawi was sitting listlessly. Something in the child’s crying touched his heart, and he asked the woman to let him take the little man. The