Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/99

81 company, carried them to their king, whom they found seated on a piece of black felt laid on a rock, and about him a great company of blacks, standing in his service. Quoth the blacks to him, ‘We found these birds among the trees;’ and he was anhungred; so he took two of the servants and killed them and ate them; which when Seif saw, he feared for himself and wept and repeated these verses:

Then he sighed and repeated these also:

When the king heard his weeping and wailing, he said, ‘Verily, these birds have sweet voices and their song pleaseth me: put them in cages.’ So they set them each in a cage and hung them up at the king’s head, that he might hear their song. On this wise Seif and his men abode a great while, and the blacks gave them to eat and drink: and now they wept and now laughed, now spoke and now were silent, whilst the king of the blacks delighted in the sound of their voices.

Now this king had a daughter married in another island, who, hearing that her father had birds with sweet voices, sent to him to seek of him some of them. So he sent her, by her messenger, Seif el Mulouk and three of his men in four cages; and when she saw them, they pleased her and she commanded to hang them up in a place over her head. Then Seif fell to marvelling at that which had befallen him and calling to mind his former high

VOL. VII.