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how she is wasted upon that Hunchback!" Then said she, "O my

brother, let us get under him and lift him up and carry him to

Cairo, that we may compare him with the damsel of whom thou

speakest and so determine whether of the twain is the fairer."

"To hear is to obey!" replied he, "thou speakest to the point;

nor is there a righter recking than this of thine, and I myself

will carry him." So he raised him from the ground and flew with

him like a bird soaring in upper air, the Ifritah keeping close

by his side at equal speed, till he alighted with him in the city

of Cairo and set him down on a stone bench and woke him up. He

roused himself and finding that he was no longer at his father's

tomb in Bassorah-city he looked right and left and saw that he

was in a strange place; and he would have cried out; but the

Ifrit gave him a cuff which persuaded him to keep silence.