“Forgetting his health, the Well-and-wise-walking Khan hath opened his lips,” cried the Siddhî-kür. And with the cry, “To escape out of this world is good,” he sped him through the air once again, swift out of sight.
Tale XV.
When therefore the Well-and-wise-walking Khan found that he had once more failed in the end and object of his mission, he once more took the way of the shady grove, and once more in the same fashion as before he took the Siddhî-kür captive in his sack. As he bore him along weary with the journey through the desert country, the Siddhî-kür asked if he would not tell a tale to enliven the way, and when he steadfastly held his tongue, the Siddhî-kür bid him, if he would that he should tell one, but give a token of nodding his head backwards, without opening his lips.
Then he nodded his head backwards, and the Siddhî-kür told this tale, saying,—
The Use of Magic Language.
Long ages ago there lived in Western India a King who had a very clever son. In order to make the best advantage of his understanding, and to fit him in every way to become an accomplished sovereign, the King sent him into the Diamond-kingdom[1], that he might be thoroughly instructed in all kinds of knowledge. He was accompanied in his journey by the son of the king’s chief minister, who was also to share his studies, but who was as dull as he was intelligent. On their arrival in the Diamond-kingdom, they gave each of them the sum with which they had been provided by their parents to two Lamas to conduct their education, and spent twelve years with them.
At the end of the twelve years the minister’s son proposed to the king’s son that they should now return home, and as the Lamas allowed that the king’s son had made such progress in the five kinds of knowledge that there was nothing more he could learn, he agreed to the proposal, and they set out on their homeward way.
All went well at first; but one day passed, and then another, and yet another, that they came to no source of water, and being parched nigh unto death with thirst, the minister’s son would have laid him down to die. As he stood hesitating about going on, a crow passed and made his cry of “ikerek.” The prince now encouraged his companion, saying, “Come but a little way farther, and we shall find water.”