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hated poets in general, and this one particularly so, because he thought the young man had foiled him in one of the treaties just made. Now, it so happened that the grand vizier had hoped by some means to get a solution of the riddle, and secure the great prizes for a young son of his own; and, as soon as the divan was closed, that very day, he hastened to the closet of the king, and there still further poisoned the mind of his master against the victor, by charging him with having succeeded through the aid of sorcery, which so enraged the king that he readily agreed to remove the claimant by means of a speedy, secret, and cruel death that very night, to which end the poet was drugged in his wine at the evening banquet, conveyed to a couch openly, and almost immediately thereafter removed to the chamber allotted to the refractory servants of the court. This apartment was under ground, and the youth, being thrown violently on the floor, revived, and was astonished to find himself bound hand and foot in presence of the king, his vizier, a few soldiers, and—death; for he saw at a glance that his days were numbered. He defended himself from the charge of sorcery, but in vain. He was doomed to die, and the order given, when, just as the blow was about to fall, there appeared the semblance of a gigantic hand, moving as if to stay the uplifted blade; but too late. The sword fell, and, as it reached the neck of the victim, he