TALE III.

_The Dice-Box. A Fairy Tale._

_Translated from the French Translation of the Countess DAUNOIS, for the
Entertainment of Miss CAROLINE CAMPBELL._ [_Eldest daughter of lord
William Campbell; she lived with her aunt the countess of Ailesbury._]


There was a merchant of Damascus named Aboulcasem, who had an only
daughter called Pissimissi, which signifies _the waters of Jordan_;
because a fairy foretold at her birth that she would be one of Solomon's
concubines. Azaziel, the angel of death, having transported Aboulcasem
to the regions of bliss, he had no fortune to bequeath to his beloved
child but the shell of a pistachia-nut drawn by an elephant and a
ladybird. Pissimissi, who was but nine years old, and who had been been
kept in great confinement, was impatient to see the world; and no sooner
was the breath out of her father's body, than she got into the car, and
whipping her elephant and ladybird, drove out of the yard as fast as
possible, without knowing whither she was going. Her coursers never
stopped till they came to the foot of a brazen tower, that had neither
doors nor windows, in which lived an old enchantress, who had locked
herself up there with seventeen thousand husbands. It had but one single
vent for air, which was a small chimney grated over, through which it
was scarce possible to put one's hand. Pissimissi, who was very
impatient, ordered her coursers to fly with her up to the top of the
chimney, which, as they were the most docile creatures in the world,
they immediately did; but unluckily the fore paw of the elephant
lighting on the top of the chimney, broke down the grate by its weight,