“All that is of no use here,” said the tailor.  “Take my advice, put on a short coat, and as you seem hardy and strong, go into the woods and cut firewood, which you will sell in the streets.  By this means you will earn your living, and be able to wait till better times come.  The hatchet and the cord shall be my present.”

This counsel was very distasteful to me, but I thought I could not do otherwise than adopt it.  So the next morning I set out with a company of poor wood-cutters, to whom the tailor had introduced me.  Even on the first day I cut enough wood to sell for a tolerable sum, and very soon I became more expert, and had made enough money to repay the tailor all he had lent me.

I had been a wood-cutter for more than a year, when one day I wandered further into the forest than I had ever done before, and reached a delicious green glade, where I began to cut wood.  I was hacking at the root of a tree, when I beheld an iron ring fastened to a trapdoor of the same metal.  I soon cleared away the earth, and pulling up the door, found a staircase, which I hastily made up my mind to go down, carrying my hatchet with me by way of protection.  When I reached the bottom I discovered that I was in a huge palace, as brilliantly lighted as any palace above ground that I had ever seen, with a long gallery supported by pillars of jasper, ornamented with capitals of gold.  Down this gallery a lady came to meet me, of such beauty that I forgot everything else, and thought only of her.

To save her all the trouble possible, I hastened towards her, and bowed low.

“Who are you?  Who are you?” she said.  “A man or a genius?”

“A man, madam,” I replied; “I have nothing to do with genii.”

“By what accident do you come here?” she asked again with a sigh.  “I have been in this place now for five and twenty years, and you are the first man who has visited me.”

Emboldened by her beauty and gentleness, I ventured to reply, “Before, madam, I answer your question, allow me to say how grateful I am for this meeting, which is not only a consolation to me in my own heavy sorrow, but may perhaps enable me to render your lot happier,” and then I told her who I was, and how I had come there.

“Alas, prince,” she said, with a deeper sigh than before, “you have guessed rightly in supposing me an unwilling prisoner in this gorgeous place.  I am the daughter of the king of the Ebony Isle, of whose fame you surely must have heard.  At my father’s desire I was married to a prince who was my own cousin; but on my very wedding day, I was snatched up by a genius, and brought here in a faint.  For a long while I did nothing but weep, and would not suffer the genius to come near me; but time teaches us submission, and I have now got accustomed to his presence, and if clothes and jewels could content me, I have them in plenty.  Every tenth day, for five and twenty years, I have received a visit from him, but in case I should need his help at any other time, I have only to touch a talisman that stands at the entrance of my chamber.  It wants still five days to his next visit, and I hope that during that time you will do me the honour to be my guest.”