“O Zarashne, beautiful Zarashne,” whispered Selim Pasha, “I have come to set you free!” And all the evening they whispered together, while the garden went to sleep and the moon rose and the nightingales began to sing. Then Bulbo came to the window with a candle, and called:
“Zarashne! It is time for you to go to bed!”
But Zarashne did not heed him, and at last he came out into the garden.
“Why do you lean over that bowl and look into it all the time, Zarashne? I have called you seven times and you have not answered me!” he said in great anger.
“I see the reflection of my face,” replied Princess Zarashne, and continued to gaze down and whisper to Selim Pasha.
“If you do not come into the house,” cried Bulbo, “I will break the bowl!”
Then Zarashne was frightened and would have followed him, but she could not tear herself from her lover, who was saying:
“Goodnight, goodnight, most beautiful flower of Allah’s garden! Goodnight, my princess!” So she lingered just another moment and then another, till Bulbo was too angry to call her any more.
“You are a vain, vain woman,” he exclaimed, “to gaze so long at your own image, and I will put an end to it.” He tore a big branch from the nearest pomegranate tree, and before she could prevent it, he struck the beautiful bowl with all his might. It flew into a thousand glittering fragments; but in the midst of it stood Selim Pasha the Proud, Prince of Orient Land, his sword bared and shining in the moonlight.
“Treason,” screamed the little sorcerer, “treason!” and fell on his knees before the Prince. Then Bulbo’s servants, his bats and sprites, came running to help him. But when Bulbo had broken the crystal bowl, the rainbow fairies who had been imprisoned in the glass, were all set free, and they took splinters of the glass for swords, and fought a dreadful battle with Bulbo’s sprites, among the poppies and nightshade and the lovely poison berry-bushes. At last the rainbow fairies were victorious, and Selim Pasha sheathed his terrible sword.
“I will not kill you, Bulbo, because you are small and old,” said the magnanimous prince. “But you shall be banished.”
Then the prince gathered up the fragments of his bowl, which looked like common window glass now, for the rainbow fairies had taken all of the beautiful colors with them, and taking his glass-blower’s lamp, he blew the pieces into a perfect sphere all around old Bulbo. Then he drew a great breath—poof! and the globe rose into the air, higher and higher among the clouds, till the winds wafted it thousands of miles away. People who saw it and the little man inside, thought it was the moon. Where it came down was never known, but old Bulbo had vanished forever from Orient Land.