Page:Fairy tales from the Arabian nights.djvu/316

 As soon as the princess reached home, she placed the cage in the garden, just by the hall; and the bird no sooner began to sing than he was surrounded by nightingales, chaffinches, larks, linnets, goldfinches, and a great many other birds of the country. As for the branch of the singing tree, it was no sooner set in the midst of the garden, a little distance from the house, than it took root, and in a short time became a large tree, the leaves of which gave as harmonious a concert as those of the tree from which it was gathered. As to the flagon of golden water, a large basin of beautiful marble was made in the midst of the garden; and when it was finished, the princess poured into it all the yellow water that was in the flagon; and it increased and swelled so much that it soon reached up to the edges of the basin, and afterwards formed in the middle a fountain twenty feet high, which fell again into the basin perpetually, without running over.

The report of these wonders was presently spread abroad in the neighbourhood, and as the doors of the house and those of the gardens were shut to nobody, a great many people came to admire them.

Some days afterwards, when the Princes Bahman and Perviz had recovered from the fatigue of their journey, they resumed their former way of living; and as their usual diversion was hunting, they mounted their horses, and went for the first time since their return, not in their own park, but two or three leagues from the house. As they pursued their sport, the Sultan of Persia came up hunting on the same spot of ground. When they perceived by the number of horsemen in different places that he would soon reach them, they resolved to leave off, and retire to avoid meeting him; but they chanced to meet him in so narrow a path that they could not turn away nor retreat without being seen. In their surprise they had only time to alight and prostrate themselves before the sultan without lifting up their heads to look at him. The sultan, who saw they were as well mounted and dressed as if they had belonged to his court, had some curiosity to see their faces. He stopped, and commanded them to rise. The princes rose up, and stood before the sultan with an easy and graceful air, and respectful modest countenances. The sultan