Farrukhrúz accordingly departed in quest of the treasure-trees, and when he was well out of the city he took the signet-ring given to him by the king of the fairies and put it on his finger, when immediately an afrít[70] of dreadful aspect, large as an elephant and fierce as a dragon, appeared before him, and bowing humbly said: “I am Kashank the afrít whom the king of the fairies has sent to serve you, and I have come to execute your orders.” “I wish to see her majesty the queen of the fairies,” rejoined Farrukhrúz, upon which the afrít Kashank drew the finger of obedience over the eyes of acquiescence, and taking Farrukhrúz on his back ascended into the sky.
After the fairy queen had despatched Farrukhrúz to her cousin to cure his son, she sent a number of afríts for her sister Nafísa, who had ill-treated Farrukhrúz, and when she was brought the queen spoke to her thus: “Sinful woman! how is it that you always afflict Muslims, who are of all men by their piety and devotion the greatest favourites in the courts of Unity? How had poor Farrukhrúz offended you that you should change him into a monkey?” Then the queen would have punished her, but all the fairies pleaded in her favour and Nafísa was pardoned. But so far from feeling grateful for this clemency, Nafísa, to avenge the humiliation which she had been forced to endure at the court of her sister, plotted with a number of malevolent genii against Queen Bánú. Knowing that her sister wished to marry Farrukhrúz, and that he had cured the prince and obtained from his father such a powerful talisman as the signet-ring, she said to her complotters: “It is likely that the love which Farrukhrúz entertains for Queen Bánú will induce him to visit her presently, and as she has so deeply insulted me you must kill him and thus disappoint her. Let one of my damsels be dressed to resemble Queen Bánú, and send her with a suitable retinue to meet Farrukhrúz, who will mistake her for the queen and marry her. In his attentions to her he will become careless about the ring, so that you will be able to take it from his finger and then easily put him to death.” Matters having been thus arranged, they waited for the appearance of Farrukhrúz. It happened also that Kashank the afrít, whom the king of the fairies had sent to Farrukhrúz, was a friend and well-wisher of Nafísa, so he informed her of his errand, and she in return disclosed to him her scheme, upon which he said: “Be not dismayed; make all arrangements for your damsel to meet Farrukhrúz in the spot where you first saw him, and I shall bring him thither.”