The magician, thus disguised like the holy woman Fatima, spent the remainder of the night in the cell, after he had committed so horrid a murder. The next morning, two hours after sunrise, though it was not a day the holy woman used to go out on, he crept out of the cell, being well persuaded that nobody would ask him any questions about it; or, if they should, he had an answer ready for them. As one of the first things he did after his arrival was to find out Aladdin’s palace, where he was to execute his designs, he went directly thither.
As soon as the people saw the holy woman, as they imagined him to be, they presently gathered about him in a great crowd. Some begged his blessing, others kissed his hand, and others, more reserved, only the hem of his garment: while others, whether their heads ached, or they had a mind to be preserved against that distemper, stooped for him to lay his hands upon them; which he did, muttering some words in form of prayer, and, in short, counterfeited so well, that everybody took him for the holy woman.
After frequently stopping to satisfy these kind of people, who received neither good nor harm from this imposition of hands, he came at last to the square before Aladdin’s palace. The crowd was so great that the eagerness to get at him increased in proportion. Those who were the most zealous and strong, forced their way through the crowd to get room. There were such quarrels, and so great a noise, that the princess, who was in the hall of four-and-twenty windows, heard it, and asked what was the matter; but nobody being able to give her an account, she ordered them to go and see, and inform her. One of her women looked out of a window, and then told her it was a great crowd of people that were gathering about the holy woman, to be cured of the headache by the imposition of her hands.
The princess, who had for a long time heard a great deal of this holy woman, but had never seen her, conceived a great curiosity to have some conversation with her, which the chief of the eunuchs perceiving, told her it was an easy matter to bring her to her, if she desired and commanded it; and the princess shewing a desire, he immediately sent four eunuchs for the pretended holy woman.