orbits, being troubled. Verily when they came there were no stars,
though it was midnight. And Ali said that it was the appointed place.
In harems in Persia in the evening when the tales go round it is still
told how Ali and Shep and Shooshan came to the Black country.

When it was dawn they looked upon the country and saw how it was
without doubt the appointed place, even as Ali had said, for the earth
had been taken out of pits and burned and left lying in heaps, and
there were many factories, and they stood over the town and as it were
rejoiced. And with one voice Shep and Shooshan gave praise to Ali.

And Ali said that the great ones of the place must needs be gathered
together, and to this end Shep and Shooshan went into the town and
there spoke craftily. For they said that Ali had of his wisdom
contrived as it were a patent and a novelty which should greatly
benefit England. And when they heard how he sought nothing for his
novelty save only to benefit mankind they consented to speak with Ali
and see his novelty. And they came forth and met Ali.

And Ali spake and said unto them: "O lords of this place; in the book
that all men know it is written how that a fisherman casting his net
into the sea drew up a bottle of brass, and when he took the stopper
from the bottle a dreadful genie of horrible aspect rose from the
bottle, as it were like a smoke, even to darkening the sky, whereat
the fisherman..." And the great ones of that place said: "We have
heard the story." And Ali said: "What became of that genie after he
was safely thrown back into the sea is not properly spoken of by any
save those that pursue the study of demons and not with certainty by
any man, but that the stopper that bore the ineffable seal and bears
it to this day became separate from the bottle is among those things