Said the genie: "By what manner of death wilt thou die, for I have
sworn, by Allah, to slay the man who freed me!" He moreover explained
how Solomon had placed him in the jar for heresy, and how he had lain
all those years at the bottom of the sea. For a hundred years, he said,
he swore that he would make rich for ever and ever the man who freed
him; for the next hundred, that for such an one he would open the hoards
of the earth; then, that he would perfectly fulfil such an one's three
wishes; finally, in his rage, that he would kill the man who freed him.

Now, the fisherman, having pleaded in vain, said that he did not believe
the tale, seeing that so huge a genie could never have got into so small
a jar. Whereat the genie made smoke of himself, and re-entered the vase.
Instantly then did the fisherman stopper it, nor would he let the genie
free till that wicked one had promised to spare his life and do him
service. Grudgingly and wrathfully did the genie issue forth, but being
now under oath to Allah, he spared the fisherman and did him service.

He took him to a lake in the black mountains, bade him throw in his net,
and bear the catch to the sultan. Now, by the fisherman's catching of
four fish all of a different hue, the sultan discovered that this lake
in the mountains was once a populous and mighty city, whereof the prince
and all the inhabitants had been bewitched in ancient time. When the
city was restored and all those many people called back to life, the
sultan enriched the fisherman, who lived afterwards in wealth.


_IX.--The Enchanted Horse_