Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/134

110 saw him they were filled with compassion and cried aloud, "Who shall give back to us our friend, the companion of our youth?"

"That will I!" cried the doctor's son, and he mixed a potion which, when he had given it to the corpse to drink, gave him power to rise up as if no harm had ever befallen him.

When they saw him all well again, and free to speak, they every one came round him, assailing him with manifold questions upon how he had fallen into this evil plight, and upon all that had happened to him since they parted. But when he had told them all his story from beginning to end, they all agreed his wife must have been a wonderful maiden indeed, and they cried out, "Who shall be able to restore his wife to our brother?"

"That will I!" cried the wood-carver's son. "And I!" cried the painter's son.

So the wood-carver's son set to work, and of the log of a tree he hewed out a Garuda-bird, and fashioned it with springs, so that when a man sat in it he could direct it this way or that whithersoever he listed to go; and the painter's son adorned it with every pleasant colour. Thus together they perfected a most beautiful bird.

The rich youth lost no time in placing himself inside the beautiful garuda-bird, and, touching the spring, flew straight away right over the royal palace.