Short Stories
So he plucked out the Prince’s other eye, and darted down
with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel
into the palm of her hand. “What a lovely bit of glass,” cried the
little girl; and she ran home, laughing.
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. “You are blind
now,” he said, “so I will stay with you always.”
“No, little Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you must go
away to Egypt.”
“I will stay with you always,” said the Swallow, and he slept
at the Prince’s feet.
All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him
stories of what he had seen in strange lands.
He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the
banks of the Nile, and catch gold-fish in their beaks; of the
Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the desert,
and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by
the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of
the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as eb-
ony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that
sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with hon-
ey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large
flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.
“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell me of mar-
vellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffer-
ing of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Mis-
ery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see
there.”
So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich
making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were
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