GAFFER. [Winking hard] I am the fakir.
MADHAV. It beats my reckoning what you're not.
AMAL. Where have you been this time, Fakir?
FAKIR. To the Isle of Parrots. I am just back.
MADHAV. The Parrots' Isle!
FAKIR. Is it so very astonishing? Am I like you, man? A
journey doesn't cost a thing. I tramp just where I like.
AMAL. [Clapping] How jolly for you! Remember your promise to take
me with you as your follower when I'm well.
FAKIR. Of course, and I'll teach you such secrets too of
travelling that nothing in sea or forest or mountain can bar your
way.
MADHAV. What's all this rigmarole?
GAFFER. Amal, my dear, I bow to nothing in sea or mountain; but
if the doctor joins in with this uncle of yours, then I with all
my magic must own myself beaten.
AMAL. No. Uncle shan't tell the doctor. And I promise to lie
quiet; but the day I am well, off I go with the Fakir and nothing
in sea or mountain or torrent shall stand in my way.
MADHAV. Fie, dear child, don't keep on harping upon going! It
makes me so sad to hear you talk so.
AMAL. Tell me, Fakir, what the Parrots' Isle is like.
GAFFER. It's a land of wonders; it's a haunt of birds. There's
no man; and they neither speak nor walk, they simply sing and
they fly.
AMAL. How glorious! And it's by some sea?
GAFFER. Of course. It's on the sea.
AMAL. And green hills are there?
GAFFER. Indeed, they live among the green hills; and in the time
of the sunset when there is a red glow on the hillside, all the
birds with their green wings flock back to their nests.
AMAL. And there are waterfalls!
GAFFER. Dear me, of course; you don't have a hill without its
waterfalls. Oh, it's like molten diamonds; and, my dear, what
dances they have! Don't they make the pebbles sing as they rush
over them to the sea. No devil of a doctor can stop them for a
moment. The birds looked upon me as nothing but a man, quite a
trifling creature without wings--and they would have nothing to
do with me. Were it not so I would build a small cabin for
myself among their crowd of nests and pass my days counting the
sea waves.