Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/138

114 means of my wooden garuda-bird. Behold, are we six unarmed men able to have laid siege to the Khan's palace? And as no man is suffered to pass within its portal, never had she been reached, but by means of my bird. So it is I clearly who have most claim to her."

"Not so!" cried the painter's son. "It is to my art the whole is due. What would the garuda-bird have availed had I not painted it divinely? Unless adorned by my art never had the Khan sent his most beautiful wife to offer it food. To me is due the deliverance, and to me the prize, therefore."

Thus they all strove together; and as they could not agree which should have her, and she would go with none of them but only the rich youth, her husband, they all seized her to gain possession of her, till in the end she was torn in pieces.

"Then if each one had given her up to the other he would have been no worse off," cried the Prince. And as he let these words escape him, the Siddhî-kür replied, "Forgetting his health, the Well-and-wise-walking Khan hath opened his lips." And with the cry, "To escape out of this world is good!" he sped him through the air, swift out of sight.

Of the Adventures of the Well-and-wise-walking Khan the ninth chapter, of the story of Five to One.