Thus they wandered about for several days, living miserably on the fruits of the field, which they could not swallow very well on account of their long beaks. As for lizards and frogs, their stomachs could not relish such food; besides, they were afraid of spoiling their appetite with such tit-bits. Their only pleasure in their sad situation was that they could fly, and thus they flew often to the high roofs of Bagdad to see what was going on in the town.
During the first days they remarked great uneasiness and grief in the streets. But on the fourth day of their enchantment, while sitting on the roof of the Caliph’s palace, they saw down in the street below a splendid array. The drums and fifes played; a man dressed in a gold-embroidered scarlet mantle rode a richly-caparisoned horse, surrounded by a gaudy train of servants. Half Bagdad rushed about him, and everybody shouted: ‘Hail, Mizra! the ruler of Bagdad!’
Then the two storks upon the roof of the palace looked at each other, and the Caliph Chasid said: ‘Dost thou guess now why I am enchanted, Grand Vizier? This Mizra is the son of my mortal enemy, the mighty Magician Kaschnur, who in an evil hour swore revenge on me. But still I do not despair. Come with me, thou faithful companion of my misery; we will betake ourselves to the grave of the Prophet; perhaps at that sacred shrine the magic may be dispelled.’
They rose from the roof of the palace and flew towards Medina.
They did not succeed very well in flying, for as yet they had had very little practice. ‘O Master!’ sighed the Grand Vizier after a couple of hours’ flight, ‘with your leave I can hold out no longer, you fly too swiftly for me! Besides, it is dark already, and we should do well to seek shelter for the night.’
Chasid listened to the request of his servant; and seeing beneath them in the valley some ruins which promised a lodging, they flew towards it. The place where they had settled for the night seemed formerly to have been a castle. Splendid pillars rose from among the ruins; several chambers which were still tolerably preserved testified to the bygone splendour of the building. Chasid and his companion strolled through the passages in search of some dry nook, when suddenly the stork Mansor stopped. ‘Lord and Master,’ he whispered below his breath, ‘is it not foolish for a Grand Vizier, and still more so for a stork to fear ghosts? Still, I feel very uneasy, for close by some one sighed and groaned quite distinctly.’ The Caliph now also stopped, and heard quite plainly a low sob, which seemed rather to come from a man than an animal. Full of anxiety, he wanted to go towards the spot whence proceeded the sound of sorrow; but the Vizier seized him by the wing with his beak and begged him not to rush upon new and unknown perils. But all was of no avail. The Caliph, who bore a brave heart beneath his stork plumage, tore himself away with the loss of some feathers, and ran towards a gloomy passage. Soon he came to a door which was ajar, and behind which he heard distinct sighs and moans. He pushed open the door with his beak, but stopped on the threshold in astonishment. In the ruined chamber, which was only dimly lighted by a little iron-barred window, he saw a great night-owl sitting on the ground. Heavy tears rolled out of its large round eyes, and with a hoarse voice it uttered its moans from its hooked beak. But when it saw the Caliph and his Vizier, who had come up in the meantime, it gave a loud cry of joy. Elegantly it wiped the tears from its eye with its brown-flecked wings, and to the great amazement of both, it cried in good human Arabic: ‘Welcome, ye storks; you are a good omen to me of my deliverance, for through storks I am to be lucky, as it was once foretold me.’
When the Caliph had recovered from his astonishment, he bowed with his long neck, set his thin legs in a graceful position, and said: ‘Night-owl! from thy words I believe that I see a fellow-sufferer. But alas! thy hope of deliverance through us is in vain. Thou wilt recognise our helplessness in hearing our tale.’ The night-owl begged him to relate it, and the Caliph commenced to relate what we already know.
When the Caliph had related his story to the owl she thanked him, and said: ‘Now also listen to my tale, and learn how I am no less unlucky than you are yourself. My father is the king of the Indies; I, his only unhappy daughter, am called Lusa. That Magician Kaschnur, who has enchanted you, has also brought misfortune upon me. One day he came to my father and asked me in marriage for his son Mizra. But my father, who is a fiery man, had him thrown downstairs. The wretch knew how to approach me again under another shape, and one day, while I was taking some refreshments in my garden, he administered to me, disguised as a slave, a draught, which changed me into this hideous shape. Fainting from fear, he brought me hither and shouted with a terrible voice into my ear: “Here shalt thou remain, detestable, abhorred even by beast, to thy end, or till one of free will, himself in this horrid form, asks thee to be his wife. And thus I revenge myself on thee and on thy haughty father.”
‘Since then many months have passed. Lonely and sadly I live as a recluse within these ruins, shunned by the world, a scarecrow even to beasts: beautiful nature is hidden from me, for I am blind by daylight, and only when the moon pours her wan light over these ruins does the obscuring veil drop from my eyes.’
When the owl had finished she again wiped her eyes with her wings, for the story of her woes had moved her to tears.