《阿拉丁和神灯》5. New lamps for old新灯换旧灯

5.New lamps for old

Where was Abanazar all this time? When he could not get the lamp from Aladdin, he went home to Morocco. He was very angry with Aladdin. 'But the boy is dead now,' he thought. 'And perhaps next year I can go back and get the lamp.'
One day, he got out his seven black stones. These stones were magic, and when he put them in water, the water could tell him many things. Soon, he could see the magic lamp in the water, but it was not under the white stone in the Arabian hills. It was in a palace.
'How did this happen?' said Abanazar. 'I must go back to Arabia and find this palace.'
After some months he arrived again in the city in Arabia. Soon, he saw the new palace and asked a man in the street: 'Who lives there?'
'That's Aladdin's palace,' was the answer. 'Princess Badr-al-Budur's husband, a good man—and very rich!'
Abanazar said nothing and walked away. 'That lazy, good-for-nothing boy!' he thought angrily. 'So he has the magic lamp, and he knows about the jinnee! How can I get the lamp back?'
For the next week Abanazar watched Aladdin's palace. One day Aladdin and his friends left the palace to go hunting in the hills.
'Good,' Abanazar thought, 'now I can get the lamp.'
After Aladdin left, Princess Badr-al-Budur went into the palace gardens. She sat under a tree and looked at the flowers. Then she heard a noise in the street, and called her slave-girl, Fawzia.
'What's the matter? Who's making that noise?' she asked. 'Fawzia, go and look in the street.'
When Fawzia came back, she had a smile on her face.
'Mistress,' she said, 'the children in the street are laughing at an old man. He's selling lamps, but not for money. "New lamps for old," he cries. "Give me an old lamp, and you can have a new lamp." So everybody's getting new lamps.'
Badr-al-Budur laughed. 'Do we have an old lamp for him? Yes—my husband's old lamp! Go and get it.' The Princess knew nothing about the lamp or its magic.
Fawzia went into the palace and came back with Aladdin's lamp. 'Here it is, mistress,' she said.
'Go and give it to the old man.' The Princess laughed. 'Aladdin can have a nice new lamp!'
Fawzia went out into the street with the lamp. 'New lamps for old,' the old man called, and the children behind him laughed and called, 'New lamps for old.'
The old man (it was Abanazar, of course) saw the lamp in Fawzia's hands, and knew it at once, because of the picture in the water of his magic stones. He took the old lamp, gave a new lamp to Fawzia, and then quickly walked away. He walked out of the city into the hills. Then he took out the lamp and rubbed it...
WHOOSH! At once the jinnee of the lamp came to him. 'I am here, master,' he said. 'What is your wish?'
'Carry Aladdin's palace, the Princess, and me back to Morocco at once,' Abanazar said. 'The Sultan can kill Aladdin for me.'
'To hear is to obey.'
In a second Abanazar, the palace, the gardens, and the Princess were in Morocco. And in front of the Sultan's palace there was now only a little red smoke.