The prince advanced and saluted it ; it proudly drooped its head and forelocks and paced to the platform . Seventy or eighty others were with it , and now encircled it at a little distance . It laid its right paw over its left , and the prince took the kerchief Jamila had given him for the purpose , and rubbed the dust and earth from its face ; then brought forward the game he had prepared , and crossing his hands respectfully on his breast stood waiting before it . When it wished for food he cut off pieces of the meat and put them in its mouth . The serving lions also came near and the prince would have stayed his hand , but the king-lion signed to him to feed them too . This he did , laying the meat on the platform . Then the king-lion beckoned the prince to come near and said : ` Sleep at ease ; my guards will watch . ' . So , surrounded by the lion-guard , he slept till dawn , when the king lion said good-bye , and gave him a few of his own hairs and said : ` When you are in any difficulty , burn one of these and I will be there . ' Then it went off into the jungle . Prince Almas immediately started ; he rode till he came to the parting of the ways . He remembered quite well that the right-hand way was short and dangerous , but he bethought himself too that whatever was written on his forehead would happen , and took the forbidden road . By-and-by he saw a castle , and knew from what Jamila had told him that it was the Place of Clashing Swords . He would have liked to go back by the way ho had come , but courage forbade , and he said , ` What has been preordained from eternity will happen to me , ' and went on towards the castle . He was thinking of tying his horse to a tree which grew near the gate when a negro came out and spied him . ` Ha ! ' said the wretch to himself , ` this is good ; Taram-taq has not eaten man-meat for a long time , and is craving for some . I will take this creature to him . ' He took hold of the prince 's reins , and said : ` Dismount , man-child ! Come to my master .
He has wanted XXXXX eat man-meat this long time back . '
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