up, however loudly I holloa." So they let down the youngest brother, and he too began to holloa and bawl, but they paid no heed to it, and let him down till he stood on the dry bottom of the well. A door stood before him, he opened it, and there were three lovely damsels sitting in a room together, and each of them shone like the moon when she is only fourteen days old. The three damsels were amazed at the sight of the youth. How durst he come into the devil's cavern? they asked—and they begged and besought him to escape as he valued dear life. But the youth would not budge at any price, till he had got the better of this devil also. The end of the matter was that he slew the devil and released the three damsels, who were Sultan's daughters, and had been stolen from their fathers and kept here for the last seven years. The two elder princesses he intended for his two brothers, but the youngest, who was also the loveliest, he chose for himself, and filling the pitcher with water he brought the damsels to the bottom of the well, right below the mouth of it.
First of all he let them draw up the eldest princess for his eldest brother, then he made them pull up the middling princess for his middling brother, and then it came to the youngest damsel's turn. But she desired that the youth should be drawn up at all hazards and herself afterwards. "Thy brethren,"
