when an hour of the day had gone by: lo! they heard a mighty roar
and uproar in the middle of the main as though the heavens were
falling upon the earth; and the sea brake with waves before them,
and from it towered a black pillar, which grew and grew till it
rose skywards and began making for that meadow. Seeing it, they
waxed fearful exceedingly and climbed to the top of the tree,
which was a lofty; whence they gazed to see what might be the
matter. And behold, it was a Jinni,[FN#12] huge of height and
burly of breast and bulk, broad of brow and black of blee,
bearing on his head a coffer of crystal. He strode to land,
wading through the deep, and coming to the tree whereupon were
the two Kings, seated himself beneath it. He then set down the
coffer on its bottom and out it drew a casket, with seven
padlocks of steel, which he unlocked with seven keys of steel he
took from beside his thigh, and out of it a young lady to come
was seen, white-skinned and of winsomest mien, of stature fine
and thin, and bright as though a moon of the fourteenth night she
had been, or the sun raining lively sheen. Even so the poet
Utayyah hath excellently said:--

She rose like the morn as she shone through the night * And she
gilded the grove with her gracious sight:
From her radiance the sun taketh increase when * She unveileth
and shameth the moonshine bright.
Bow down all beings between her hands * As she showeth charms
with her veil undight.
And she foodeth cities[FN#13] with torrent tears * When she
flasheth her look of levee light.

The Jinni seated her under the tree by his side and looking at