Page:Wonder Tales from Tibet.djvu/30

6 minnow and was swimming rapidly away. The magicians saw their prey disappearing and immediately transformed themselves into seven larger fish and gave chase. In and out among the shallows and deep pools they flashed, the little fish and the seven great ones after it, on and on, and ever the great fish gained upon the little one, until the foremost of the seven could almost seize it in his mouth.

"Alack-a-day!" sighed the Prince, "now indeed is my last hour come! By all the power of magic spells, I wish that some living creature would come by into which I could transform myself and so escape!" He had scarcely uttered this wish to himself when a white bird flew low over the brook, and in a flash the minnow was gone, and the Prince was flying swiftly over the fields in the form of a white dove. But he was none too quick, for the seven magicians had become seven great hawks and were circling over him. The Prince