“Are there not fruits in the garden?” asked the Pelican, “and have I not a bill a yard long? Lie down and rest and I will see that you do not starve.”
He gazed at her as she slept and saw that she was very beautiful. Her eyelashes were longer than a finger’s breadth, and her mouth scarlet like the canna-flowers over her head. When the evening was come, he went out and took as much fruit as he could get and brought it back in his pouch, washing it and giving it to the girl, who ate thankfully. Then the stars came out and they slept side by side among the cannas.
Next day, at the hour when he expected his friend, the bird went to the gate and stood watching. When he saw him approaching he went forward crying, “See what I have done for you! I have here got the melon girl for whom you spend your life in searching. Come in, and I will bring you to her.”
At this the young man was overjoyed and embraced the Pelican, and the two hurried into the garden.
At sight of the girl he fell more deeply in love than ever, and all the time he had meant to spend with his friend he sat with her by the water. The Pelican stood by. “See,” said he, “he has forgotten my very existence, though he has come all the way from the city for my company.”
But he understood too much to be angry, for he knew such things had been since the foundation of the world.
When the young man found that the girl was afraid to go back to her father, he saw a way by which he need not part with her. “Return with me,” said he, “my mother is old and lives with me; you shall wait upon her and cook the food for my house.”
So he took her back with him and presented her to his mother.
Now the young man’s mother was a jealous woman, and, though she liked the girl and was well pleased to have her work done for her, she soon began to do everything she could think of to make her miserable, because she saw that her son loved her. So unhappy did she make the household that the young man said, “I must go immediately and consult the Pelican, or there is no knowing what may happen.”
And, although it was not Friday, he went off to Prince Hassan’s garden and laid his difficulties before the bird.