Part 23 (1/2)
”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.