THE FIRE BIRD
There he found the Princess asleep and saw that her face was the face he had seen in the portrait.
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'Sire,' replied Ferdâsan humbly, 'my work is done, and I must return to my cave in the mountains.'
'What!' cried the King in a rage, 'you defy me? I will compel you.'
'You cannot,' replied Ferdâsan. 'Seers stand before kings—and that is true in two ways.
'We shall see.' The King clapped his hands fiercely. Then, as two guards came running in answer to the summons, he cried, 'Take that man and place him in a dungeon!'
The guards turned upon Ferdâsan, who stood calm and unmoved, looking at the King. Then, as they were about to seize him, a strange thing happened. They clutched at the empty air and staggered against one another, amazed. For a moment the Throne-room seemed to echo a sweet music from far away; for a moment it was filled with the faint fragrance of mountain lilies; then the King saw a thin grey mist slowly issuing through one of the windows, to dissolve in the sunlight.
And then he knew.
From that time forward, the King regarded the seer's prediction with great anxiety. He watched the young Prince continually in his first years, and, when, as was often the case, he saw him gazing wistfully towards the west when the sun had set, he felt sure that the coming event had cast its shadow before.