“That Blackbird shall not trick me again,” scolded the King. “I will kill him tonight. Put him in with my Elephants and they will crush the life out of him.”
So that night the servants shut the Blackbird up in the shed with all the big Elephants.
At midnight, when all the world was sound asleep, the Blackbird began to sing:
“Come out from my ear, you Ants,
Come and sting the Elephants.
Sting each trunk and sting each head!
Sting them till they fall down dead!”
Then out came the swarm of Ants from the Blackbird’s ear. They crawled inside the Elephants’ trunks; they burrowed into the Elephants’ brains; they bit them and stung them so sharply that the Elephants all went mad and trumpeted wildly as they pushed each other about tramping upon each other until they all fell down dead.
The next morning the King said to his servants, “Go and bring me the proof that the insolent Blackbird is dead.”
But, when the servants went out, there they found the Blackbird playing upon his drum, while about him all the dead Elephants were piled upon the ground.