"But I do not see how I can go with you to the Golden Cave," he said to the wild ducks. "If I could fly it would be an easy thing to do."
"If you would like to go, we will take you," said the ducks. "We will take the two ends of a stick in our bills, and you can hold on to the middle by your mouth. Just don't let go of it, and you will be all right."
"Oh, that will be easy for me to do," replied the turtle.
"Indeed it won't," said Hazar to himself from behind the trees, where he was watching the ducks and the turtle; "you would have to hold your tongue, and that is something you could never do since you were born."
Hazar finished up the business he had on hand and then joined the King in his summer palace up in the hills and as soon as they found a stick which would bear the weight of the turtle, the ducks flew up into the air with the turtle between them.
How the fishes did laugh as they looked at the turtle hanging from the stick by his mouth. "Don't come back again, Talking Turtle," they called after him. "We can get along very well without you."
"I don't intend to come back! Keep your old pond to yourselves!" was what the turtle wanted to say in reply, but he did not dare to, because if he opened his mouth to speak he would tumble right back into the pond again.
So they flew on and on over the cities and villages and fields, and every time they stopped, the ducks cautioned the turtle to hold his tongue or he would be killed.
Then one day as they were flying over a field, a woman who was working there called out, "Two wild ducks are carrying a turtle along on a stick!"