Ten minutes later Abdullah said, “There, most eminent and intelligent persons, are our plans laid. It only remains for the genie—”

Purple smoke poured from the bottle and trailed in agitated waves along the marble floor. “You do not use me!” cried the genie. “I said toads, and I mean toads! Hasruel put me in this bottle, don’t you understand? If I do anything against him, he’ll put me somewhere even worse!”

Sophie looked up and frowned at the smoke. “There really is a genie!”

“But I merely require your powers of divination to tell me where Hasruel’s life is hidden,” Abdullah explained. “I am not asking for a wish.”

“No!” howled the mauve smoke.

Flower-in-the-Night picked the bottle up and balanced it on her knee. Smoke flowed downward in puffs and seemed to try to seep into the cracks in the marble floor. “It stands to reason,” Flower-in-the-Night said, “that since every man we asked to help has had his price, then the genie has his price, also. It must be a male characteristic. Genie, if you agree to help Abdullah in this, I will promise you what logic assures me is the correct reward.”

Grudgingly the mauve smoke began to seep backward toward the bottle again. “Oh, very well,” said the genie.

Two minutes after this the charmed curtain in the doorway to the princesses’ room was swept aside, and everyone streamed out into the great hall, clamoring for Dalzel’s attention and dragging Abdullah in their midst, a helpless prisoner.

“Dalzel! Dalzel!” clamored the thirty princesses. “Is this the way you guard us? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

Dalzel looked up. He was leaning over the side of his great throne to play chess with Hasruel. He blanched a bit at what he saw and signed to his brother to remove the chess set. Fortunately the crowd of princesses was too thick for him to notice Sophie and the Jharine of Jham huddled in the midst of it, though his lovely eyes did fall on Jamal and narrow with astonishment. “What is it now?” he said.

“A man in our room!” screamed the princesses. “A terrible, awful man!”

“What man?” trumpeted Dalzel. “What man would dare?”

“This one!” shrieked the princesses. Abdullah was dragged forward between Princess Beatrice and the Princess of Alberia, most shamefully clothed in almost nothing but the hooped petticoat that had hung behind the curtain. This petticoat was an essential part of the plan. Two of the things underneath it were the genie’s bottle and the magic carpet. Abdullah was glad he had taken these precautions when Dalzel glared at him. He had not known before that a djinn’s eyes could actually flame. Dalzel’s eyes were like two bluish furnaces.

Hasruel’s behavior made Abdullah even more uncomfortable. A mean grin spread over Hasruel’s huge features, and he said, “Ah! You again!” Then he folded his great arms and looked very sarcastic indeed.