And the perfect host had kept his tradition of hospitality.
The Dove-Girl and the Prince
There was once a Persian Prince of noble birth who lost all his money: so he left his country and came to India, bringing with him his wife and three children.
“It will not”, he said, “be so hard to be poor in a strange country.”
He travelled with a great many other people, all coming through the snow mountains and passes, and wild bleak places of Afghanistan. The women rode on camels, slung in cages on either side of the driver; and most of their luggage also was carried in this way. The men walked, and the journey took a weary long time for man and beast. The travellers halted to cook their food, and they halted again to sleep by great watch-fires, till the dawn-star told them that it was time to go on once more.
One day a baby was born to the wife of the Persian, and he was very cross. “It is only a girl,” he said, “and no use at all.” So when no one was looking he laid it on the grass by the roadside, and meant to go away and leave it there to die.
Now it happened that a great man known at the Court of the Emperor Akbar, was also travelling with the pilgrims for safety; for there were many robbers in those days, and only if a man travelled with a crowd of people in what was called a Caravan, could he be safe.
And the great man saw the poor little baby lying alone on the grass, and, as it seemed to belong to no one, he said he would take it for his own. And he looked about among the women in the Caravan for a nurse.
The second dove also flew happily away