Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/247

the carpet.” Whereupon Abu Freywar, in a rage hung her up beside her sister.

He then went and asked for the youngest daughter, whose name was Zerendac, saying, that he wanted her for another brother. But the girl, a spoilt child, refused to go unless she might take with her a pet kitten and a box in which she kept her treasures. Hugging those, she went with Abu Freywar to the cave.

She proved wiser than her sisters. When her husband’s back was turned, she gave his ears to the cat which devoured them eagerly, while she ate some food which she had brought from home. When the ogre returned and cried as of wont, “Ears of mine, are you hot or cold?” he received the answer, “As hot as can be in this snug little stomach,” and this pleased him so that from that time he began to grow very fond of Zerendac.

After she had lived some days with him, he said, “I must go on a journey. There are forty rooms in this palace. Here are the keys, with which you may open any door you please except that to which this golden key belongs,” and with that he took his departure. Zerendac amused herself in his absence with opening and examining the locked-up rooms. On entering the thirty-ninth, she happened to look out of the window which opened on to a burial ground, and was terrified to see her husband, who was a ghûl, devouring a corpse that he had just dug out of a grave with his long claw-like nails. She was so fascinated with the sight that (hidden behind the window curtain), she