The princess Badr-oul-boudour rose earlier that morning than she had done since her transportation into Africa by the magician, whose presence she was forced to support once a day because he was master of the palace; but she had always treated him so harshly, that he dared not reside in it. As she was dressing, one of the women, looking through the window, perceived Aladdin, and presently ran and told her mistress. The princess, who could not believe the news, went that moment herself to the window, and seeing Aladdin, immediately opened it. The noise the princess made in opening the window made Aladdin turn his head that way, who, knowing the princess, saluted her with an air that expressed his joy. “To lose no time,” said she to him, “I have sent to have the private door opened for you. Enter and come up;” and then shut the window.
The private door, which was just under the princess’s apartment, was soon opened, and Aladdin was conducted up into the princess’s chamber. It is impossible to express the joy of those lovers at seeing each other, after a separation which they both thought was for ever. They embraced several times, and showed all the marks of a sincere love and tenderness, after an event so unforeseen and melancholy. After these embracings, and shedding tears of joy, they sat down, and Aladdin, beginning the discourse said, “I beg of you, princess, in God’s name, before we talk of anything else, to tell me, both for your own sake, the sultan your father’s and mine, what has become of an old lamp which I left upon the cornice in the hall of the four-and-twenty windows, before I went to hunting.”
“Alas! dear husband,” answered the princess, “I am afraid our misfortune is owing to that lamp; and what grieves me most is, that I have been the cause of it.” “Princess,” replied Aladdin, “do not blame yourself, since it was entirely my fault, and I ought to have taken more care of it. But let us now think only of repairing the loss: tell me what has happened, and into whose hands it has fallen.”
Then the princess Badr-oul-boudour gave Aladdin an account how she changed the old lamp for a new one, which she ordered to be fetched, that he might see it, and how the next morning she found herself in the unknown country they were then in, which she was told was Africa, by the traitor who had transported her thither by his magic art.