Be it briefly said, O warrior king—for you think that I am talking fables—that in the days of old, men had the art of making birds discourse in human language. The invention is attributed to a great philosopher, who split their tongues, and after many generations produced a selected race born with those members split. He altered the shapes of their skulls by fixing ligatures behind the occiput, which caused the sinciput to protrude, their eyes to become prominent, and their brains to master the art of expressing thoughts in words.
But this wonderful discovery, like those of great philosophers generally, had in it a terrible practical flaw. The birds beginning to speak, spoke wisely and so well, they told the truth so persistently, they rebuked their brethren of the featherless skins so openly, they flattered them so little and they counselled them so much, that mankind presently grew tired of hearing them discourse. Thus the art gradually fell into desuetude, and now it is numbered with the things that were.
One day the charming Princess Chandravati was sitting in confidential conversation with her jay. The dialogue was not remarkable, for maidens in all ages seldom consult their confidantes or speculate upon the secrets of futurity, or ask to have dreams interpreted, except upon one subject. At last the princess said, for perhaps the hundredth time that month, ‘Where, O jay, is there a husband worthy of me?’
‘Princess,’ replied Madan-manjari, ‘I am happy at length to be able as willing to satisfy your just curiosity. For just it is, though the delicacy of our sex——’
‘Now, no preaching!’ said the maiden; ‘or thou shalt have salt instead of sugar for supper.’
Jays, your Rajaship, are fond of sugar. So the confidante retained a quantity of good advice which she was about to produce, and replied,
‘I now see clearly the ways of Fortune. Raja Ram, king of Bhogavati, is to be thy husband. He shall be happy in thee and thou in him, for he is young and handsome, rich and generous, good-tempered, not too clever, and without a chance of being an invalid.’
Thereupon the princess, although she had never seen her future husband, at once began to love him. In fact, though neither had set eyes upon the other, both were mutually in love.
‘How can that be, sire?’ asked the young Dharma Dhwaj of his father. ‘I always thought that——’
The great Vikram interrupted his son, and bade him not to ask silly questions. Thus he expected to neutralise the evil effects of the Baital’s doctrine touching the amiability of parents unlike himself.