The voices seemed to chime in with the melancholy of the princess, who rose, trembling, as the mother of Amazan entered.
'Ah, give him back to me!' she cried; 'for his sake I have quitted the most brilliant court in the world, and have braved all kinds of dangers. I have escaped the snares of the King of Egypt—and now I find he has fled from me.'
'Princess,' answered the lady, 'did you not happen to notice while you were at supper with the King of Egypt a blackbird flying about the room?'
'Ah, now you say so, I do recollect one!' rejoined the princess; 'and I remember that when the king bent forward to give me a kiss, the bird disappeared through the window with a cry of anguish.'
'You are right, alas!' replied the lady, 'and from that moment all our troubles can be dated. That blackbird had been sent by my son to bring him news of your health, as he meant as soon as the burial ceremonies for his father had been completed to return and throw himself at your feet. For when a Gangarid is in love, he is in love. But as soon as he was told how gay you seemed, above all, as soon as he heard of you ready to accept the kiss of the monarch who had killed the phœnix, despair filled his soul, and that in the very moment in which he had learned that he was your cousin and that therefore the King of Babylon might be induced to listen to his suit.'
'My cousin! But how?'
'Never mind that now. He is your cousin! But I feared he would never survive the news of the kiss which you had given to the King of Egypt.'
'Oh, my aunt, if you could only understand!' cried the princess, wringing her hands. 'I dared not excite the king's suspicions or I should never have escaped! I swear it by the ashes and the soul of the phœnix which were then in my pocket! Tell her, Bird of Wisdom, that what I say is true.'
'It is! It is!' exclaimed the phœnix eagerly. 'But now what we have to do is to go in search of Amazan. I will despatch unicorns in all directions, and I hope before many hours to be able to tell you where he is.'
The phœnix was as good as his word. At length one of the unicorns learned that Amazan was in China. Without losing a moment they set out, and arrived, travelling through the air, in the short space of eight days, but only to find that they had again missed him by a few hours. The emperor would gladly have kept Formosante to show her the wonders of his country, but as soon as he heard her story and how all this misery had its root in a kiss given out of pure fidelity, he saw that the one thing he could do for the princess was to discover for her the road which Amazan had taken.