gotten; come home with me, and my father and mother will welcome you as a son.'
He replied, 'No, I must first return to my own home awhile. Do you rather return there now with me, for it is a long time since I left it, and afterwards we will come again to your father's kingdom.'
To this Panch-Phul Ranee agreed. It took them, however, a long time to find their way out of the jungle. At last they succeeded in doing so, for none of the wild animals in it attempted to injure them—so beautiful and royal did they both look.
When they reached the banyan-tree where the Rajah had left the two parrots, the old parrot called out to him, 'So you have come back at last! we thought you never would, you were such a long time away! There you went, leaving us here all that time, and after all doing no good, but only getting yourself killed. Why didn't you do as we advised you, and jump up nicely?'
'Well, I'm sure,' said the Rajah, 'yours is a hard case; but I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting so long, and now I hope you'll take me and my wife home.'
'Yes, we will do that,' answered the parrots; 'but you had better get some dinner first, for its a long journey over the seven seas.'
So the Rajah went to the village close by, and bought food for himself and the Panch-Phul Ranee. When he returned with it, he said to her, 'I fear the long journey before us for you; had you not better let me make it alone, and return here for you when it is over?' But she answered, 'No! what could I, a poor, weak woman, do here alone? and I will not return to my father's house till you can come too. Take me with you, however far you go, only promise me you will never leave me.' So he promised her, and they both, mounting the parrots, were carried up in the air across the seven seas, across the Red Sea, on, on, on, a whole year's journey, until they reached his father's kingdom, and alighted to rest at the foot of the palace garden. The Rajah, however, did not know where he was, for all had much changed since he left in his boyhood.
Then a little son was born to the Rajah and Panch-Phul Ranee. He was a beautiful child, but his father was grieved to think that in that bleak place there was no shelter for the mother or the baby. So he said to his wife, 'I will go to fetch food for us both, and fire to cook it with, and inquire what this country is, and seek out a
