old woman let him stay. She hid him in the corner behind the firewood
and warned him to keep still.
Presently the three eagles whom he had maimed came flying into the hut.
The old woman put a bowl of milk on the table, the birds dipped in the
milk, and lo! their feather shirts opened and they stepped out three
maidens. One of them had lost her lips, one an arm, and the third a leg.
"Ah!" they cried to their mother, "see what has befallen us! If only the
youth who maimed us would return the beak and the wing and the leg that
he hacked off, we would tell him anything he wants to know."
At that the Youngest Brother stepped out from behind the firewood and
said:
"Tell me then where I can find the Nightingale Gisar and you shall have
back your beak and your wing and your leg."
He opened his bag and the maidens were overjoyed to see their beak and
their wing and their leg. Then they told the Youngest Brother all they
knew about the Nightingale Gisar.
"Far from here," they said, "there is a Warrior Princess, so beautiful
that men call her Flower o' the World. She has the Nightingale Gisar in
a golden cage hanging in her own chamber. The chamber door is guarded by
a lion and a wolf and a tiger for the Flower o' the World knows that she
will have to marry the man who steals from her the Nightingale Gisar."
"How can a man enter the chamber of the Flower o' the World?" the
Youngest Brother asked.
"For a few moments at midnight," the sisters told him, "the three
animals sleep. During those few moments a man could enter the chamber,
get the Nightingale Gisar, and escape. But even then he might not be
safe for the Flower o' the World might gather her army together and
pursue him."
"Now tell me how to reach the palace of that Warrior Princess, Flower o'
the World."
"You could never get there alone," they told him, "the way is too long
and the dangers are too many. Stay here with us for three months and at
the end of three months we will carry you thither on our wings."
So for three months the Youngest Brother stayed on in the hut with the
old woman and her three daughters. The three daughters flew in their
eagle shirts to the spring of the Water of Life and bathing in that
magic pool they made grow on again the beak and the wing and the leg
which the Youngest Brother had hacked off.
At the end of three months they carried the Youngest Brother on their
wings to the distant kingdom where the Warrior Princess, Flower o' the
World, lived.
At midnight they set him down in front of the palace and he slipped
unseen through the guards at the gate and through the halls of the
palace to the Princess's own chamber. The lion, the wolf, and the tiger
were asleep and he was able to push back the curtain before which they
were lying and creep up to the Princess's very bedside without being
discovered.
He looked once at the sleeping Flower o' the World and she was so
beautiful that he dared not look again for fear he should forget the
Nightingale Gisar and betray himself by crying out.
At the head of the bed were four lighted candles and at the foot four
unlighted ones. He blew out the lighted ones and lit the others. Then
quickly he took the golden cage in which the Nightingale Gisar was
perched asleep, unfastened it from the golden chain on which it was
hanging, and hurried out. The eagles were waiting for him and at once
they spread their wings and carried him away.
They put him down at the crossroads where he had parted from his
brothers just one year before. Then they bade him farewell and flew off
to their home in the desert.
"My brothers will probably be here in an hour or so," the Youngest Son
thought. "I had better wait for them."
He felt sleepy, so he lay down by the roadside and closed his eyes.
While he slept his brothers arrived and of course the first thing they
saw was the golden cage and the Nightingale Gisar.
Then envy and hatred filled their hearts and they began cursing and
complaining to think that he who was the Youngest had succeeded where
they had failed.
"We'll be the laughing-stock of the whole country!" they said, "if we
let him come home carrying the Nightingale Gisar! Let us take the bird
while he sleeps and hurry home with it. Then if he comes home later and
says it was he who really found the bird no one will believe him."
So they beat their brother into insensibility and tore his clothes to
rags to make him think that he had been set upon by robbers, and then
taking the golden cage and the Nightingale Gisar they hurried home and
presented themselves to their father, the Sultan.
"Here, O father," they said, "is the Nightingale Gisar! To get this
glorious bird for you we have endured all the perils in the world!"
"And your Youngest Brother," the Sultan asked, "where is he?"
"The Youngest? Think no more of him, father, for he is unworthy to be
your son. Instead of searching the wide world for the Nightingale Gisar,
he settled down in the first city he reached and lived a life of
idleness and ease. Some say he became a barber and some say he opened a
coffee-house and spent his days chatting with passing travelers. He has
not come home with us for no doubt it shames him to know that we have
succeeded where he has failed."
The Sultan was grieved to hear this evil report of his Youngest Son, but
he was overjoyed to have the Nightingale Gisar. He had the golden cage
carried to the mosque and hung beside the fountain in the court.
But imagine his disappointment when the bird refused to sing!
"Let him who found the Nightingale come to the mosque," the Dervish said
in his droning sing-song voice, "and then the Nightingale will sing."
The Sultan immediately sent for his two sons. They came but still the
bird was silent.
"See now," the Sultan said, "my two sons are here and yet the bird is
silent."
But the Dervish would only repeat:
"Let him who found the Nightingale come to the mosque and then the
Nightingale will sing."
The next day a youth in rags whom nobody knew entered the mosque to pray
and instantly the Nightingale began to sing.
A messenger was sent running to the Sultan with the news that the
Nightingale was singing. The Sultan hurried to the mosque but by the
time he got there the beggar youth was gone and the Nightingale had
stopped singing.
"Now that I'm here," cried the Sultan, "why does the bird not sing?"
The Dervish, swaying his body gently back and forth, made answer as
before:
"Let him who found the Nightingale come to the mosque and then the
Nightingale will sing."
Thereafter every day when the beggar youth came to the mosque to pray
the Nightingale sang, and always when the Sultan approached the beggar
walked away and the bird stopped singing. At last people began
whispering:
"Strange that the Nightingale should sing only when that beggar youth is
near! And yet the Dervish says it will not sing unless he who found it
comes to the mosque! What can he mean?"
Report of the beggar youth reached the ears of the Sultan and he went to
the Dervish and questioned him.
"Why do you say that the Nightingale Gisar will not sing unless he who
found him comes to the mosque? Lo, here are my two sons who found him
and the bird remains silent, yet people tell me that when a certain
beggar comes to the mosque he sings. Why does he not sing when I and my
two sons come to pray?"
And always the Dervish made the same answer in the same sing-song voice:
"Let him who found the Nightingale come to the mosque and then the
Nightingale will sing."
Soon a terrifying rumor spread through the land that a great Warrior
Princess called Flower o' the World was coming with a mighty army to
make war on the Sultan and to destroy his city. Her army far outnumbered
the Sultan's and when she encamped in a broad valley over against the
city the Sultan's people, seeing her mighty hosts, were filled with
dread and besought their ruler to make peace with the Princess at any
cost. So the Sultan called his heralds and sent them to her and through
them he said:
"Demand of me what you will even to my life but spare my city."
The Warrior Princess returned this answer:
"I will spare you and your city provided you deliver me your son who
stole from me the Nightingale Gisar. Him I shall have executed or let
live as it pleases me."
Now the Sultan's two sons knew that the Flower o' the World was fated to
marry the man who had stolen from her the Nightingale Gisar, so when
they heard the Princess's demand they were overjoyed thinking that she
would have to fall in love with one of them. So they disputed at great
length as to which of them had done the actual deed of taking the bird,
each insisting that it was he and not his brother. The Sultan himself
had finally to decide between them.
"You have told me," he said, "that you captured the bird together. As
that is the case and as I can't send you both to the Warrior Princess it
is only right that the older should go."
So under a splendid escort the oldest son rode to the tent of the
Warrior Princess. She bade him enter alone and when he appeared before
her she looked at him long and steadily. Then she said:
"Nay, but you are never the man who stole from me the Nightingale Gisar!
You would lack the courage to face the perils of the way!"
The oldest prince answered the Flower o' the World craftily:
"But how, Princess, if I did not steal from you the Nightingale Gisar
was I then able to bring back that glorious bird and hang his cage
beside the fountain in the mosque?"
But Flower o' the World was not to be deceived by such specious words.
"Tell me then," she said, "if it was you who stole my glorious
Nightingale, where did you find him hanging in his golden cage?"
The oldest prince could not answer this, so he said at random:
"I found his golden cage hanging in the cypress tree that grows in the
garden of your palace."
"Enough!" cried the Princess.
She clapped her hands and when her guards appeared she said to them:
"Have this man executed at once and let his head be sent to the Sultan
with the message: _This is the head of a liar and a coward! Send me at
once your son who stole my glorious Nightingale Gisar or I will march
against your city!_"
The Sultan was greatly shocked to receive this message together with the
head of his oldest son.
"Alas!" he cried, calling his second son, "would that I had listened to
you when you insisted that it was you and not your brother who actually
did the deed! Unhappily I listened to your brother! See now the awful
result of this mistake! Go you now to this heartless Princess whom men
call Flower o' the World or else our poor defenseless city will have to
pay the penalty."
So the second prince was taken to the tent of the Warrior Maiden and she
put to him the same questions and he fared even worse than his brother
had fared. So his head, too, was sent to the Sultan with this message:
"_Send me no more liars and cowards but the son who actually did steal
from me my glorious Nightingale Gisar._"
In despair the Sultan went to the mosque to pray. As he bowed his head
he heard the Nightingale burst forth in song. Then when he looked up he
saw a beggar youth standing near the fountain.
When his prayers were finished the Sultan went outside to the Dervish
and said to him:
"The Warrior Princess, Flower o' the World, demands that I send her
another son. I know not where my Third Son is. What shall I do?"
Without looking at the Sultan the Dervish answered in his sing-song
voice:
"Send her the son for whom the Nightingale sings."
The Sultan turned away in disappointment, not understanding what the
Dervish meant, but one of his attendants plucked his sleeve and
whispered:
"The Nightingale sings for yonder beggar youth. Perhaps it is he the
Dervish means. Why not ask him if he will go to Flower o' the World in
place of your Youngest Son?"
[Illustration: _The Flower o' the World Asleep_]
The Sultan nodded, so the attendant called the beggar youth and the
Sultan asked him would he go to the Warrior Princess as the Youngest
Prince.
"Allah alone knows where my Youngest Son is," the Sultan said, "but he
is just about your age and if you were washed and anointed and dressed
in fitting garments you would not be unlike him."
The beggar youth said he would go but he insisted on going just as he
was. The Sultan begged him to go dressed as a prince or the Flower o'
the World might not receive him.
"No," said the youth, "I shall go as a beggar or not at all. It is for
the Flower o' the World to know me whether or not I am the Sultan's
Youngest Son and the man who stole from her the Nightingale Gisar."
So he went as he was to the tent of the Flower o' the World and her
warriors when they saw him coming said to the Princess:
"This Sultan mocks you and sends you a beggar when you demand his Third
Son."
But the Flower o' the World ordered them all out and bade the beggar
enter alone. She looked at him long and steadily and she saw through his
rags that he was indeed a noble youth with a body made strong and
beautiful through exercise and toil and she thought to herself:
"It were not a hard fate to marry this youth!"
Then she questioned him:
"Are you the Sultan's Third Son?"
"I am."
"Then why are you dressed as a beggar?"
"Because I was set upon at the crossroads and beaten insensible and my
clothes torn to rags. I was coming home with the Nightingale Gisar in my
hands and I lay down at the roadside to rest while I awaited the coming
of my brothers. When I awoke to consciousness the Nightingale and its
golden cage were gone. I came home to my father's city as a beggar and
there they told me that my brothers had come just before me bringing
with them the Nightingale and boasting of the perils they had been
through and the dangers they had faced. But the Nightingale, they told
me, hanging in its golden cage beside the fountain, was silent. Yet when
I went to the mosque it always sang."
The Warrior Princess looked deep into his eyes and knew that he was
speaking truth. Her heart was touched with compassion at the wrong he
had suffered from his brothers, but she hid her feelings and questioned
him further.
"Then it was you," she said, "who really took from me my glorious
Nightingale Gisar?"
"Yes, Princess, it was. I crept past the lion and the wolf and the tiger
just after midnight while they slept. I blew out the four candles at the
head of your bed and lighted those at the foot. The golden cage of the
Nightingale was hanging from a golden chain. Before I unfastened it I
looked at you once, as you lay sleeping, and dared not look a second
time."
"Why not?" the Princess asked.
"Because, O Flower o' the World, you were so beautiful that I feared,
were I to look again, I should forget the Nightingale Gisar and cry out
in ecstacy."
Then the compassion in the Princess's heart changed to love and she knew
for a certainty that this was the man she was fated to wed.
She clapped her hands and when the guards came in she said to them:
"Call my warriors together that I may show them the Sultan's Youngest
Son and the man who stole from me my glorious Nightingale Gisar and whom
I am fated to wed."
So the warriors came in until they crowded the tent to its utmost. Then
the Princess stood up and took the Sultan's Youngest Son by the hand and
presented him to the warriors and told them of his great bravery and
courage and of all the perils he had endured in order to get the
Nightingale Gisar for his father's mosque.
"He came to me now as a beggar," she said, "but I knew him at once for
truth was in his mouth and courage in his eye. Behold, O warriors, your
future lord!"
Then the warriors waved their swords and cried:
"Long live the Flower o' the World! Long live the Sultan's Youngest
Son!"
All the Princess's army when they heard the news raised such a mighty
shout that the people in the Sultan's city heard and were filled with
dread not knowing what it meant. But soon they knew and then they, too,
went mad with joy that what had threatened to be a war was turning to a
wedding!
The Flower o' the World and her chief warriors and with them the
Youngest Prince rode slowly to the city. The Prince was now dressed as
befitted his rank and the Sultan when he saw him recognized him at once.
"Allah be praised!" he cried, "my Youngest Son lives!"
Then they told him all--how it was this Prince and not the older
brothers who had found the Nightingale Gisar and how the older brothers
had robbed him of his prize and beaten him insensible.
When the Sultan heard how wicked his older sons had been his grief for
their death was assuaged.
"Allah be praised," he said, "that I have at least one son who is
worthy!"
After the betrothal ceremony the Sultan and the Youngest Prince went to
the mosque to pray. While they prayed the Nightingale sang so gloriously
that it seemed to them they were no longer on earth but in Paradise.
When their prayers were finished and they were passing out, the Dervish
raised his sing-song voice and said:
"Now indeed is the Sultan's Mosque the most beautiful Mosque in the
World for the Nightingale Gisar sings beside the Fountain!"
[Illustration]
THE GIRL IN THE CHEST
[Illustration]
_The Story of the Third Sister Who Was Brave and Good_
THE GIRL IN THE CHEST
There was once a horrible Vampire who took the form of a handsome young
man and went to the house of an old woman who had three daughters and
pretended he wanted to marry the oldest.
"I live far from here," the Vampire said. "I own my own farm and am
well-to-do and in marrying me your daughter would get a desirable
husband. Indeed, I am so well off that I don't have to ask any dowry."
Now the old woman was so poor that she couldn't have given a penny of
dowry. That was the only reason why all three of her daughters hadn't
long ago been married to youths of their own village. So when the
stranger said he would require no dowry, the old woman whispered to her
oldest daughter:
"He seems to be all right. Perhaps you had better take him."
The poor girl accepted her mother's advice and that afternoon started
off with the Vampire who said he would lead her home and marry her.
They walked a great distance and as evening came on they reached a wild
ghostly spot which frightened the girl half to death.
"This way, my dear," the Vampire said, pushing her into an opening in
the earth. "We take this underground passage and soon we'll be home."
The passage led to a sort of cave which really was the Vampire's home.
"What an awful place!" the poor girl cried in terror. "Let me out!"
"Let you out, indeed!" the Vampire sneered, taking his own horrible
shape and laughing cruelly. "Here you are and here you stay and if you
don't do everything I tell you, I'll soon finish you! Here now, drink
this."
He offered the poor girl a pitcher and when she saw what was in it she
nearly fainted with horror.
"No!" she cried. "I won't! I won't!"
"If you don't drink this," the Vampire said, darkly, "then I'll drink
you!"
And with that he killed her with no more feeling than if she were a fly.
Then in a short time he went back to the old woman and said:
"Dear mother, my poor wife is ill and she begs that you send her your
second daughter to nurse her. She asks for her sister night and day and
I fear she will die unless she sees her."
When the poor old mother heard this, she begged the second daughter to
go at once with the young man and nurse her sick sister.
Well, the same thing happened to the second sister and in no time at all
the Vampire had killed her, too, to satisfy his awful thirst.
Then he returned again to the old mother and this time he pretended that
both sisters were sick and were trying for the third sister to come and
nurse them. So the poor old woman sent her Youngest Daughter away with
the Vampire.
The Youngest Sister when she found out the truth about the horrid
Vampire didn't sit down and weep helplessly as the others had done and
wait for the Vampire to kill her, but she prayed God's help and then
tried to find some way of escape.
There were doors in the cave which the Vampire told her were doors to
closets she must not enter. When the Vampire was out she opened these
doors and found that they all led into long underground passages.
"This is my one chance to get back to earth!" the girl thought and
commending her undertaking to God she fled down one of the passages.
You may be sure the Vampire when he came back and found her gone fell
into a great rage. He went running wildly up and down the various
passages and lost so much time searching the wrong passages that the
girl was able to make good her escape and reach the upper world in
safety.
She came out in a wood with no sign of human habitation anywhere in
sight.
"What shall I do now?" she thought. "If I stay here alone and
unprotected some wild beast or evil creature may get me."
So she knelt down and prayed God to give her a chest that she could lock
from the inside with one of her own golden hairs so securely that no one
could force it open. God heard her prayer and presently behind some
bushes she found just such a chest. When it grew dark and she was ready
to go to bed, she crept into the chest, locked it with a hair, and slept
peacefully knowing that nothing could harm her.
So she lived in the wood some time, eating berries and fruits, and
sleeping safely in the chest.
Now it so happened that the King's son one morning went hunting in this
very wood and caught a glimpse of the girl as she was gathering berries.
He thought he had never seen such a beautiful creature and instantly he
fell in love with her. But when he reached the clump of bushes where he
had seen her, she was gone. He called his huntsmen together and told
them to search everywhere. They hunted for hours and all they could find
was a chest. They tried to open the chest to see what was in it but
couldn't.
"Waste no more time over it," the Prince said at last. "Carry it home to
the palace as it is and have it placed in my chamber."
The huntsmen did this and a few hours later when the girl peeped out of
her chest she found herself alone in the Prince's chamber. His supper
was standing on a table in readiness for his coming. The girl ate the
supper and was safely back in her chest before he arrived. When he did
come the Prince was amazed to see empty plates and called the servants
to know who had eaten his supper. The servants were as much surprised as
the Prince and declared that no one had entered the chamber.
The same thing happened the next day and the following day the Prince
had one of his servants hide behind the curtains and watch to find out
if possible how the food disappeared.
The story the servant had to tell of what he saw was so thrilling that
the Prince could scarcely wait for the next day when he himself hid
behind the curtains and watched.
The serving people put the food on the table and retired and presently
the lid of the chest opened and the Prince saw the beautiful maiden of
the wood step out. When she sat down at the table the Prince slipped up
behind her and caught her in his arms.
"You lovely creature!" he said, "I'm not going to let you escape me
again!"
At first the girl was greatly frightened but the Prince reassured her,
telling her that he loved her dearly and only wanted to make her his
wife.
He led her at once to the King, his father, and the girl was so modest
and lovely that the King soon agreed to the marriage.
[Illustration: _The Chest Opened and the Prince Saw the Beautiful
Maiden_]
Everybody in court was delighted--everybody, that is, but the
Chamberlain who had had hopes of marrying his own daughter to the
Prince. His daughter was an ugly ill-tempered girl and the Prince had
never even looked at her. The Chamberlain was sure, however, that with a
little more time he could arrange the match to his liking. So the
appearance of this beautiful girl who came from Heaven knows where threw
him into a fearful rage and he decided to do away with her at any cost.
Now he had in his employ a great burly Blackamoor. He called this
fellow to him and he told him that he must kidnap the girl at once and
kill her. The Blackamoor who was accustomed to do such deeds for the
Chamberlain nodded and said he would.
So when the palace was quiet that night he stole to the bedchamber where
the girl was lying asleep, threw a great robe over her head to stifle
her cries, and carried her off. She fainted away from fright and the
Blackamoor thinking her dead tossed her into a field of nettles in the
outskirts of the town.