suffer me to survive?" Now when it was the next night and that
was

The Four Hundred and Twenty-second Night,

Dunyazad said to her, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be
other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short
the watching of this our latter night." She replied, "With love
and good will!" It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the
director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting
and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the Sultan
enquired of the two elder sons concerning their younger brother
and they said, "We made ourselves masters of the Bird and we have
brought him hither and we know nothing about our cadet." However,
the King who loved his youngest with exceeding love put the
question, "Have ye not looked after him and have ye not been in
his company?" whereto they answered saying, "A certain wayfarer
declared to have seen him on some path or other." When the father
heard this from them he cried, "There is no Majesty and there is
no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great;" and he fell to
striking palm upon palm.[FN#297] On this wise it befel these, but
as regards the case of their brother, when they cast him into the
well he awoke from his sleep and he felt himself falling into the
depths, so he cried, "I take refuge with the All-sufficient Words
of Allah[FN#298] from the mischief He hath created." And by the
blessing of these Holy Names he reached the sole of the well
without aught of harm or hurt. Here finding himself pinioned, he
strained upon his bonds and loosed them; but the well was deep of
bottom and he came upon an arched recess, so he sat in it and
exclaimed, "Verily we are Allah's and to Him we are returning and