'He will never come back! Never!' she cried, sobbing.
'Yes, he will, Princess,' answered the bird from the orange-tree. 'Who, that has once seen you, could live without seeing you again?'
Formosante was so astonished to hear the bird speak—and in the very best Chaldæan—that she ceased weeping and drew the curtains.
'Are you a magician or one of the gods in the shape of a bird?' asked she. 'Oh! if you are more than man, send him back to me!'
'I am only the bird I seem,' answered the voice; 'but I was born in the days when birds and beasts of all sorts talked familiarly with men. I held my peace before the court because I feared they would take me for a magician.'
'But how old are you?' she inquired in amazement.
'Twenty-seven thousand nine hundred years and six months,' replied the bird. 'Exactly the same age as the change that takes place in the heavens known as the "precession of the equinoxes," but there are many creatures now existing on the earth far older than I. It is about twenty-two thousand years since I learned Chaldæan. I have always had a taste for it. But in this part of the world the other animals gave up speaking when men formed the habit of eating them.'
THE PRINCESS OF BABYLON AND THE PHOENIX