Page:The strange story book.djvu/280

 the only people who did speak were the King of Scythia and the Princess Aldee, the cousin of Formosante and scarcely less beautiful than she. To him, Aldee confided that it was she who, by law, should have been Queen of Babylon, but that on the death of her grandfather his younger son had usurped her father's rights.

'However,' she ended, in answer to a question put by the King of Scythia; 'I prefer Scythia with you to Babylon's crown without you.'

There never was any mistaking what Aldee meant.

'But I will avenge your father,' cried the king. 'In two days from now you shall fly with me back to Scythia, and when I return it will be at the head of three hundred thousand men.' And so it was settled.

Everyone was glad to go to bed early after the fatigues of the day, and all slept soundly, except Formosante. She had carried the bird with her, and placed him on an orange-tree which stood on a silver tub in her room, and bidden him good-night. But tired as she was she could not close her eyes, for the scenes she had witnessed in the arena passed one by one before her. At length she could bear it no longer:

'He will never come back! Never!' she cried, sobbing.

'Yes, he will, Princess,' answered the bird from the orangetree. 'Who, that has once seen you, could live without seeing you again?'

Formosante was so astonished to hear the bird speak—and in the very best Chaldæan—that she ceased weeping and drew the curtains.

'Are you a magician or one of the gods in the shape of a bird?' asked she. 'Oh! if you are more than man, send him back to me!'

'I am only the bird I seem,' answered the voice; 'but I was born in the days when birds and beasts of all sorts talked familiarly with men. I held my peace before the court because I feared they would take me for a magician.'

'But how old are you?' she inquired in amazement.

'Twenty-seven thousand nine hundred years and six