As expected from last night's episode, Aladdin is seized and chained by the sultan's guards. And when he is in his presence, the sultan orders to decapitate Aladdin.
Aladdin is saved at the last second by the protests of the crowd.
And he is given forty days to return Princess Badrou'l-Boudour to the sultan.
Sheherazade said:
And the king cried out, saying: “No, by Allah! We must treat him like thieves and liars! Let the guards go and bring him to me loaded with chains"
Immediately the grand vizier went out to communicate the sultan's order to the chief of the guards, instructing him how he should go about it so that Aladdin did not succeed in escaping them. And the chief of the guards, accompanied by a hundred horsemen, went out of the city on the way by which Aladdin was to return, and met him five parasangs from the gates. And he immediately had him surrounded by the horsemen, and said to him: “Emir Aladdin, O our master, excuse us, please! but the sultan, whose slaves we are, has ordered us to arrest you and bring you into his hands, laden with chains, like criminals! And we cannot disobey a royal order! But, once again, excuse us for treating you like this, after we have all been drowned in your generosity! »
At these words of the chief of the guards, the tongue of Aladdin. bonded with surprise and emotion. But he finally was able to speak, and said: “O good people, do you at least know for what reason the Sultan gave you such an order when I am innocent of any crime against him or against the State!" And the chief of the guards answered: “By Allah! We do not know it!" Then Aladdin dismounted from his horse, and said: "Do with me what the sultan has commanded you! for the sultan's orders are on the head and on the eye!" And the guards seized, but very reluctantly, Aladdin, bound his arms, passed a very large and heavy chain around his neck, which they also wrapped around the middle of his body, and dragged him towards the city by the end of this chain, making it follow on foot, while they continued their journey on horseback.
When the guards arrived at the first outskirts of the city, the passers-by who saw Aladdin treated in this way had no doubt that the sultan, for a cause unknown to them, was about to have his head cut off. And as Aladdin, by his generosity and affability, had won the affection of all the subjects of the kingdom, those who saw him hastened to march after him, arming themselves some with sabers, others with clubs. others with stones and sticks. And their number increased as the procession approached the palace so that when they reached the square of the maidan they had become thousands and thousands. And all shouted and protested, brandishing their weapons and threatening the guards who had the greatest difficulty in containing them and entering the palace without being mistreated. And, while they continued to vociferate and howl on the maidan, demanding that their master Aladdin be returned to them safe and sound, the guards ushered Aladdin, still laden with chains, into the room where, sitting in his anger and his anxiety, the sultan awaited him.
Now, as soon as Aladdin was in his presence, the sultan, seized with unimaginable fury, did not even take the time to ask him what had become of the palace which contained his daughter Badrou'l-Budour, and shouted to the sword-holder: "Immediately cut off the head of this cursed impostor!" And he would neither hear nor see him a moment longer. And the sword bearer took Aladdin to the terrace overlooking the maidan where the tumultuous crowd was gathered, made Aladdin kneel on the red leather of the executions, and after blindfolding him, took off the chain he had around his neck. and around the body, and said to him: "Make your act of faith, before you die!" And he prepared to give him the blow of death, turning three times around him and flashing the saber three times in the air. But, at this precise moment, the crowd, seeing that the sword-bearer was about to execute Aladdin, proceeded, with terrible cries, to scale the walls of the palace and force the gates. And the sultan saw this, and, fearing some fatal event, he was seized with great terror. And he turned to the sword-bearer and said to him: “Postpone, for the moment, cutting off the head of this criminal!" And he said to the chief of the guards: "Make the people shout that I grant them the grace of the blood of this cursed one!" And the order immediately shouted from the top of the terraces, calmed the tumult and the fury of the crowd, and made those who forced the gates and those who scaled the walls of the palace abandon their design.
Then Aladdin, to whom care had been taken to openly remove the blindfold from his eyes, and whose hands had been undone behind his back, got up from the leather of the executions where he was kneeling, and raised his head towards the sultan, and, with tears in his eyes, he asked him: “O great king, I beg Your Highness to tell me only what crime I could have committed to incur your wrath and this disgrace!" And the sultan, very yellow in complexion and in a voice full of restrained anger, said to him: “Your crime, wretch? Are you pretending to ignore it? But you will no longer pretend when I have shown it to you with your eyes!" And he cried out to him: "Follow me!" " And he walked in front of him, and led him to the other end of the palace, on the side of the second maidan, where the palace of Badrou'l-Budour once stood surrounded by its gardens, and said to him: "Look through this window, and tell me, since you must know it, what has become of the palace which contained my daughter?" And Aladdin put his head out the window and looked. And he saw neither palace, nor garden, nor trace of palace or garden, but the immense empty maidan such as it was on the day when he had given the order to the genie of the lamp to build the wonderful home. And he was in such amazement and such pain and such shock that he was about to pass out. And he couldn't utter a single word. And the sultan cried out to him, “Well, accursed impostor, where is the palace and where is my daughter, the core of my heart, my only child?" And Aladdin sighed heavily and burst into tears; then he said, “O great king, I do not know!" And the sultan said to him: “Listen to me carefully! I don't want to ask you to return your accursed palace, but I order you to return my daughter to me. And if you don't do it right now, or if you don't want to tell me what's become of her, by my head! I'll have your head cut off!" And Aladdin, bordering on emotional, looked down and thought for a long time. Then he raised his head and said: “O great king, no one escapes his destiny. And if my destiny is to have my head cut off for a crime I did not commit, no power can save me! I only ask you, before I die, forty days to do the necessary research on the subject of my beloved wife, who disappeared with the palace while I was hunting, and without my being able to doubt how this calamity occurred, I swear it to you by the truth of our faith and the merits of our Lord Mohammad (upon him prayers and peace!)" And the sultan replied: "Be it, I will grant what you ask of me. But know that, this time passed, nothing can save you from my hands, if you do not bring my daughter back to me! Because, in any place of the earth where you can hide, I will know how to reach it and punish you!" And Aladdin, at these words, left the presence of the sultan and, with his head bowed, he crossed the palace, in the midst of the dignitaries who had difficulty in recognizing him, so suddenly changed was he by emotion and pain. And he arrived in the middle of the crowd and began to ask, with haggard eyes: “Where is my palace? Where is my wife?" And all who saw him and heard him said to themselves: “Poor man! he has lost his mind! It was the sultan's disgrace and the sight of death that drove him mad!" And Aladdin, seeing that he was nothing more than an object of compassion for everyone, quickly walked away, without anyone having the heart to follow him. And he went out of the city, and began to wander, not knowing what he was doing, through the countryside...
— At this point in her narration, Scheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.
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