Page:Sultan Stork, and other stories and sketches (IA sultanstorkother00thac).pdf/34



"After flying about, for some time, the poor storks perched upon the palace, where it was evident that all was in consternation. 'Ah!' said the king, with a sigh, 'why, O cursed vizier, didst thou ever bring that beggar-woman into my presence? here it is, an hour after sunset, and at this hour I should have been seated at a comfortable supper, but for thy odious officiousness, and my own fatal curiosity?'

"What his majesty said was true; and, having eaten nothing all day (for they could not make up their stomachs to subsist upon raw frogs and fish), he saw, to his inexpressible mortification, his own supper brought into the royal closet at the usual hour, taken away from thence, and the greater part of it eaten up by the servants as they carried it back to the kitchen.

"For three days longer, as they lingered about Tehran, that city was in evident dismay and sorrow. On the first day a council was held, and a great deal of discussion took place between the mollahs and emirs; on the second day another council was held, and all the mollahs and emirs swore eternal fidelity to King Mushook; on the third day a third council was held, and they voted to a man that all faithful Persians had long desired the return of their rightful sovereign and worship, and proclaimed Ghuzroo Sultan of Persia. Ghuzroo and his son, Ameen Adawb, entered the divan. What a thrill passed through the bosom of Mushook (who was perched on a window of the hall) when he saw Ghuzroo walk up and take possession of his august throne, and beheld in the countenance of that unbeliever the traits of the very old woman who had sold him the box!

"It would be tedious to describe to your majesty the numberless voyages and the long dreary flights which the unhappy sultan and vizier now took. There is hardly a mosque in all Persia or Arabia on which they did not light; and as for frogs and fishes, they speedily learned to be so little particular as to swallow them raw with considerable satisfaction, and, I do believe, tried every pond and river in Asia.