"Such are the sights here, and thus it always is in our warm country," said the stork-mother good-humouredly.
"Is there yet more to be seen?" they asked. "Shall we go much further into the country?"
"There is nothing more worth seeing," replied the stork-mother. "Beyond this luxuriant neighbourhood there is nothing but wild forests, where the trees grow close to each other, and are still more closely entangled by prickly creeping plants, weaving such a wall of verdure, that only the elephant, with his strong clumsy feet, can there tread his way. The snakes are too large for us there, and the lizards too lively. If ye would go to the desert, ye will meet with nothing but sand; it will fill your eyes, it will come in gusts, and cover your feathers. No, it is best here. Here are frogs and grass-hoppers. I shall remain here, and so shall you."
And they remained. The old ones sat in their nest upon the graceful minaret; they reposed themselves, and yet they had enough to do to smooth their wings and rub their beaks on their red stockings; and they stretched out their necks, saluted gravely, and lifted up their heads with their high foreheads and fine soft feathers, and their brown eyes looked so wise.
The female young ones strutted about proudly among the juicy reeds, stole sly glances at the other young storks, made acquaintances, and slaughtered a frog at every third step, or went lounging about with little snakes in their bills, which they fancied looked well, and which they knew would taste well.
The male young ones got into quarrels; struck each other with their wings; pecked at each other with their beaks, even until blood flowed. Then they all thought of engaging themselves the male and the female young ones. It was for that they lived, and they built nests, and got again into new quarrels; for in these warm countries every one is so hot-headed. Nevertheless they were very happy, and this was a great joy to the old storks. Every day there was warm sunshine every day plenty to eat. They had nothing to think of except pleasure. But yonder, within the splendid palace of their Egyptian host, as they called him, there was but little pleasure to be found.
The wealthy, mighty chief lay upon his couch, stiffened in all his limbs stretched out like a mummy in the centre of the grand saloon with the many-coloured painted walls: it was as if he were lying in a tulip. Kinsmen and servants stood around him. Dead he was not, yet it could hardly be said that he lived. The healing bog-flower from the faraway lands in the north that which she was to have sought and plucked for him she who loved him best would never now be brought. His beautiful young daughter, who in the magic garb of a swan had flown over sea and land away to the distant north, would never more return. "She is dead and gone," had the two swan ladies, her companions, declared on their return home. They had concocted a tale, and they told it as follows:
"We had flown all three high up in the air when a sportsman saw us, and shot at us with
his arrow. It struck our young friend; and, slowly singing her farewell song, she sank like a dying swan down into the midst of the lake in the wood. There, on its banks, under a fragrant weeping birch tree, we buried her. But we took a just revenge: we bound fire under the wings of the swallow that built under the sportman's thatched roof. It kindled his house was soon in flames he was burned within it and the flames shone as far over the sea as to the drooping birch, where she is now earth within the earth. Alas! never will she return to the land of Egypt."
And they both wept bitterly; and the old stork-father, when he heard it, rubbed his bill until it was quite sore.
"Lies and deceit!" he cried. "I should like, above all things, to run my beak into their breasts."
"And break it off," said the stork-mother; "you would look remarkably well then. Think first of yourself, and the interests of your own family; everything else is of little consequence."
"I will, however, place myself upon the edge of the open cupola to-morrow, when all the learned and the wise are to assemble to take the case of the sick man into consideration: perhaps they may then arrive a little nearer to the truth."
And the learned and the wise met together, and talked much, deeply, and profoundly of which the stork could make nothing at all; and, sooth to say, there was no result obtained from all this talking, either for the invalid or for his daughter in "the wild morass;" yet, nevertheless, it was all very well to listen to one must listen to a great deal in this world.
But now it were best, perhaps, for us to hear what had happened formerly. We shall then be better acquainted with the story at least, we shall know as much as the stork-father did.
"Love bestows life; the highest love bestows the highest life; it is only through love that his life can be saved," was what had been said; and it was amazingly wisely and well said, the learned declared.