be done to thy head also if thou restore not this damsel to life again." The youth quitted the palace in deep thought, and at last he bethought him that the bird's feathers might help him. So he took them out and burned them, and lo! the bird stood before him ere yet his lips had commanded it to appear. And the youth complained bitterly to the bird of the task that was set him.
Now the bird had friends among the Peris, and, flying up into the air, in no very long time was back again with a cruse of water in its beak. "I have brought thee heavenly water which can give life even to the dead," said the bird. So the prince entered the palace, and no sooner had he sprinkled the damsel with the water than she sprang up as if she had never been dead at all.
Now the rumour of all these things reached the ears of the World's most beauteous Damsel, and she ordered the prince to be brought before her. The damsel dwelt in a little marble palace, and before the palace was a golden basin which was fed by the water of four streams. The courtyard of this palace also was a vast garden wherein were many great trees and fragrant flowers and singing-birds, and to the youth it seemed like the gate of Paradise.
Suddenly the door of the palace was opened, and the garden was so flooded with light that the eyes of
