According to all appearances, there was no prospect of Aladdin being any more heard of. But the magician, when he contrived his death, had forgotten the ring he put on his finger, which preserved him, though he knew not its virtue; and it is amazing that the loss of that, together with the lamp, did not drive the magician to despair; but magicians are so much used to misfortunes, and events contrary to their wishes, that they do not lay them to heart, but still feed themselves all their lives with unsubstantial notions and chimeras.
As for Aladdin, who never suspected this bad usage from his pretended uncle, after all his caresses, and what he had done for him, his surprise is more easily to be imagined than expressed by words. When he found himself buried alive, he cried, and called out to his uncle to tell him he was ready to give him the lamp; but all in vain, since his cries could not be heard by him and he remained in this dark abode. At last when he had quite tired himself with crying, he went to the bottom of the steps, with a design to get into the garden, where it was light; but the door, which was opened before by enchantment, was now shut by the same means. Then he redoubled his cries and tears, and sat down on the steps, without any hopes of ever seeing the light again, and in a melancholy certainty of passing from the present darkness into that of a speedy death.
Aladdin remained in this state two days, without eating or drinking, and on the third day looked upon death as inevitable. Clasping his hands with an entire resignation to the will of God, he said, “There is no strength or power but in the great and high God.” In this action of joining his hands, he rubbed the ring which the magician put on his finger, and of which he knew not yet the virtue, and immediately a genie of an enormous size and frightful look rose out of the earth, his head reaching the vault, and said to him, “What wouldst thou have with me? I am ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of all who have the ring on thy finger; I, and the other slaves of that ring.”
At another time, Aladdin, who had not been used to such visions, would have been so frightened, that he would not have been able to speak at the sight of so extraordinary a figure; but the danger he was in made him answer without hesitation, “Whoever thou art, deliver me from this place, if thou art able.” He had no sooner made an end of these words, but the earth opened, and he found himself on the very spot where the magician first brought him.