' "What is the cure for your blindness?"

' "Not far from this place," they said, "a cow comes up from the
great sea to graze; a little of her dung would cure us. We
should be eternally your debtors. Do not let the cow see you, or
she will assuredly kill you."

'With renewed strength and spirit I went to the shore. There I
watched the cow come up from the sea, graze, and go back. Then I
came out of my hiding, took a little of her dung and conveyed it
to the peris. They rubbed it on their eyes, and by the Divine
might saw again.

'They thanked heaven and me, and then considered what they could
do to show their gratitude to me. "Our peri-king," they said,
"has a daughter whom he keeps under his own eye and thinks the
most lovely girl on earth. In good sooth, she has not her equal!
Now we will get you into her house and you must win her heart,
and if she has an inclination for another, you must drive it out
and win her for yourself. Her mother loves her so dearly that
she has no ease but in her presence, and she will give her to no
one in marriage. Teach her to love you so that she cannot exist
without you. But if the matter becomes known to her mother she
will have you burned in the fire. Then you must beg, as a last
favour, that your body may be anointed with oil so that you may
burn the more quickly and be spared torture. If the peri-king
allows this favour, we two will manage to be your anointers, and
we will put an oil on you such that if you were a thousand years
in the fire not a trace of burning would remain."