“Sire,” said Aladdin, “I pray you to let me know the crime by which I have lost thy favor?”

“Your crime!” answered the Sultan; “wretched man! do you not know it?  Follow me, and I will show you.”

Then he led Aladdin to a window and said, “You ought to know where your palace stood; look, and tell me what has become of it.”

Aladdin was as much amazed as the Sultan had been.  “True, it is vanished,” he said after a speechless pause, “but I have had no concern in its removal.  I beg you to give me forty days, and if in that time I cannot restore it, I will offer my head to be disposed of at your pleasure.”

“I give you the time you ask,” answered the Sultan, “but at the end of forty days forget not to present yourself before me.”

The lords, who had courted Aladdin in his better days, paid him no heed as he left the palace in extreme shame.  For three days he wandered about the city, exciting the pity of all he met by asking if they had seen his palace, or could tell where it was.  On the third day he wandered into the country.  As he approached a river he slipped and fell down a bank.  Clutching at a rock to save himself, he rubbed his ring, and instantly the genie whom he had seen in the cave appeared before him.  “What wouldst thou have?” said the genie.  “I am ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of all those that have that ring on their finger,—­both I and the other slaves of the ring.”

Aladdin had never thought of help from this quarter, and said with delight,—­

“Genie, show me where the palace I caused to be built now stands, or bring it back where it first stood.”

“Your command,” answered the genie, “is not wholly in my power; I am only the slave of the ring, and not of the lamp.”

“I command thee, then,” replied Aladdin, “by the power of the ring, to bear me to the spot where my palace stands, wherever it may be.”

These words were no sooner out of his mouth than he found himself in the midst of a large plain, where his palace stood, not far from a city, and directly above him was the window of his wife’s chamber.  Just then one of her household happened to look out and see him, and told the good news to the Princess Buddir al Buddoor.  She could not believe it to be true, and hastening to the window opened it herself with a noise which made Aladdin look up.  Seeing the princess, he saluted her with an air that expressed his joy, and in a moment he had entered by a private door and was in her arms.

After shedding tears of joy, they sat down, and Aladdin said, “I beg of you, princess, to tell me what is become of an old lamp which stood upon a shelf in my robing chamber.”

“Alas!” answered the princess, “I was afraid our misfortune might be owing to that lamp; and what grieves me most is that I have been the cause of it.  I was foolish enough to change the old lamp for a new one, and the next morning I found myself in this unknown country, which I am told is Africa.”