Then the king and
Abdallah rode down before the ranks and the whole army waved
their swords, and the flashing of the sunlight on the blades was
like lightning, and they shouted, and the noise was like the
pealing of thunder.
Before Abdallah marched off to the wars he and the princess were
married, and for a whole fortnight nothing was heard but the
sound of rejoicing. The city was illuminated from end to end, and
all of the fountains ran with wine instead of water. And of all
those who rejoiced, none was so happy as the princess, for never
had she seen one whom she thought so grand and noble and handsome
as her husband. After the fortnight had passed and gone, the army
marched away to the wars with Abdallah at its head.
Victory after victory followed, for in every engagement the
Emperor of India's troops were driven from the field. In two
months' time the war was over and Abdallah marched back again--the greatest general in the world.
But it was no longer as
Abdallah that he was known, but as the Emperor of India, for the
former emperor had been killed in the war, and Abdallah had set
the crown upon his own head.
The little taste that he had had of conquest had given him an
appetite for more, so that with the armies the Genie provided him
he conquered all the neighboring countries and brought them under
his rule. So he became the greatest emperor in all the world;
kings and princes kneeled before him, and he, Abdallah, the
fagot-maker, looking about him, could say: "No one in all the
world is so great as I!"
Could he desire anything more?
Yes; he did! He desired to be rid of the Genie!
When he thought of how all that he was in power and might--he,
the Emperor of the World--how all his riches and all his glory
had come as gifts from a hideous black monster with only one eye,
his heart was filled with bitterness.
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