Belus, King of Babylon, thought himself the greatest man in all the earth, for his subjects were continually telling him so and he had no difficulty in believing them. It was very absurd, of course, but there is this to be said in his excuse, that though his ancestors had built Babylon thirty thousand years before, it owed its chief beauties to him. Belus it was who constructed the vast palace with its famous 'hanging gardens,' and planted with fruit-trees the park stretching from the Euphrates to the Tigris, everything being kept fresh and cool in that burning heat by means of canals and fountains which scattered their waters around.

But though Babylon contained much that was beautiful, the palace itself held the most beautiful and precious thing of all, the king's only child, the Princess Formosante; and her father was prouder of her than of his whole empire put together. Still, with all his delight in his daughter's presence, he knew his duty, and that now she was eighteen it was needful to find her a suitable husband. Yet, who was worthy of such a prize? One by one Belus passed the kings of the earth in judgment before him, and could not answer this question. Then he remembered that the oracle which had been consulted at Formosante's birth had declared that only he who could bend the iron bow of Nimrod, the mighty hunter, should win the hand of the princess.

Well, since that was the decision of the oracle—which, of course, must be obeyed—matters became in one way a little easier. But, could Belus be mistaken? Had not the oracle said something else? Oh, yes! he recollected now that the arm which could draw the bow must overcome also the largest and fiercest lion ever seen in Babylon, and be the best, the cleverest, and the most splendid of men, and possess the rarest object in the whole universe.

And as one by one Belus recalled these conditions he sighed aloud, for where should he look for a son-in-law like that?

King Belus need not have been so anxious as regards suitors for the princess, for as an old song says:

'Where maidens are fair, many lovers will come,'

and Formosante was very fair indeed. The fame of her beauty had spread far and wide, and soon the Court of Babylon received notice that the Pharaoh of Egypt, the Shah of India, and the Khan of Scythia—such were the names these nations gave to their rulers—were on their way to Babylon to ask the hand of Formosante.

Preparations for the great event had to be made instantly, and that very day the place was marked out in the park for the erection of a marble amphitheatre capable of holding five hundred thousand persons. Opposite the amphitheatre was a high throne for King Belus and his daughter, and on each side, but a step lower, were those for the princes and nobles who might wish to see the contest. The seats for the three foreign kings were set a little apart.

The first to arrive was the King of Egypt, mounted on the bull Apis and followed by a train of eight thousand attendants; and scarcely had Belus bidden him welcome than the sound of trumpets announced the approach of the King of India, lying upon cushions in a gorgeous litter drawn by twelve elephants, and attended by a still more numerous company. The last to appear was the King of Scythia, riding a tiger as tall as the biggest horse from Persia. He had with him only a few picked warriors, magnificent men armed with bows and arrows; but the king himself was more imposing than any of his soldiers, and the Babylonians, as they looked at him, said to themselves: 'Ah! there is no doubt who will win the princess.'

When they were all assembled, the three monarchs fell on their faces before the king and his daughter, and then offered the gifts they had brought with them. The present of the Pharaoh consisted of two of the finest crocodiles that could be caught in the Nile, two hippopotamuses, two rats, and two mummies, all of which caused the princess to shudder at their ugliness. In his hands he held the Book of Hermes, which his magicians assured him was the rarest treasure on earth.

The Shah of India brought a hundred elephants and a document written by the hand of Xaca himself; while the Khan of Scythia, who could neither read nor write, signed to his warriors to bring forward a hundred horses covered with skins of black fox fur.

As soon as the offerings had been made, Formosante bowed modestly, but did not raise her eyes or speak, for that was never expected of a princess.

'Ah, why have I not three daughters!' exclaimed King Belus, as he conducted his guests to their thrones; 'then I could have made six people happy! Now here is the golden basin holding the lots which you must draw. The one who draws the longest, first pulls the bow.'

It was the Pharaoh who was the lucky man, and the master of the ceremonies stepped forward with the long golden case, bearing the bow of Nimrod. The Pharaoh was about to take it from him, when there suddenly appeared at the barrier which had been erected in front of the royal seats a young man mounted on a unicorn, with a bird upon his wrist, accompanied by a single attendant also riding on a unicorn. His face was fair and his hair shone like the sun, and altogether he was so different from the dwellers in Babylon that the five hundred thousand spectators in the amphitheatre rose to their feet in order to stare at him better; and suddenly they shouted with one voice: 'He is the only man on earth handsome enough for the princess.'

Formosante heard and glanced up at him; then looked hastily down. The kings heard too, and grew pale.

At this moment the ushers approached the stranger and inquired if he was a king. The young man replied that he did not have that honour, but that he had travelled far to see whether the suitors who were to present themselves were worthy of Formosante, whose renown had reached even his distant country. By the King of Babylon's orders, places were found for him and his attendant in the front row of the amphitheatre: his bird perched on his shoulder, and the two unicorns crouched at his feet.

Now all was ready: the master of the ceremonies, who had during this time been holding the case, took the bow from it to the sound of trumpets, and presented it to the King of Egypt. The Pharaoh, who had not the slightest doubt that the prize would fall to him, laid it for a moment on the head of the sacred bull Apis and stepped into the middle of the arena. The bow, though made of iron, looked flexible, and he fitted an arrow to the string with a light heart. But try as he would, he could not bend it; again and again he put forth all his strength, making such dreadful faces the while that shouts of laughter rang through the amphitheatre, and even the well-brought-up Formosante could not resist a smile.

Deeply hurt at his master's failure, the Grand Almoner of Egypt hastened to his side.

'Let not your Majesty,' he said, 'struggle further for this empty honour, which is after all only a matter of muscles and sinews. In the other tests you are sure to be victor. You will conquer the lion, for have you not the sabre of the god Osiris? The Princess of Babylon is to be the prize of the king who has given proofs of the greatest intelligence; and numerous are the riddles which you have guessed. Her husband must be the most virtuous of princes. Well, were you not the favourite pupil of the Egyptian priesthood? And do you not possess the two rarest objects in the world, the bull Apis and the book of Hermes? No; you are quite safe. There is no one to dispute with you the hand of the Princess Formosante.'

'You are right,' answered the king, and seated himself on his throne.

The bow was next delivered to the King of India, who spent fifteen days in vainly trying to draw it, and when he failed as hopelessly as the King of Egypt had done before him, consoled himself with thinking that the King of Scythia would fare no better than they.

But he was wrong. The King of Scythia had passed his whole life in shooting with bows and arrows, whereas the other two kings had only begun to practise when they heard of the conditions to be fulfilled by the husband of Formosante. When therefore the Scythian monarch grasped the bow, there was an eager rustle amongst the five hundred thousand in the amphitheatre. They leaned forward with straining eyes, and held their breath like one man, as they perceived a slight movement of the bow. The king's heart beat high as he felt it quiver under his hands, but, pull as hard as he might, he could not bend it further. A sigh of disappointment swept through the audience, partly for him and partly for the princess.

'At this rate she will never be married,' they groaned.

Then the young stranger left his seat and went up to the King of Scythia.

'Do not be surprised,' he said, 'if your Majesty has not been entirely successful. These bows are made in my country, and there is a certain knack in drawing them. You have won a greater triumph in bending it even a little than I should have done in drawing it altogether.'

As he spoke he picked up an arrow and, fitting it into the string of the bow, drew, without any apparent effort, the cord to his ear, and the arrow flew out of sight beyond the barrier.

At this spectacle a shout broke from half a million throats. The walls of Babylon rang with cries of joy, and the women murmured:

'What a comfort that such a handsome young man should have so much strength!' and waited with great interest to see what would happen next.

Well, this happened which nobody expected at all. The young man took from the folds of his turban an ivory tablet, on which he wrote some lines addressed to the princess, with a golden needle, telling her how jealous the rest of the world would be of the man who carried off the prize for which so many were striving.

To us who read them, they do not seem perhaps to fulfil the second of the conditions imposed, but the oracle knew that to the person whose eyes fell on them for the first time, they would appear to contain all the wit and wisdom of the world. So when the princess glanced at the tablet held out to her at the end of the bow, she felt that nothing more beautiful had ever been written, and the three kings looking on were rooted to the ground in astonishment and disgust.

Meanwhile King Belus, having consulted his magicians, declared that although neither of the three kings could bend the bow, his daughter must nevertheless be married, and that they would now go on to the next test, which was the slaying of the lion. The Pharaoh, who had been educated in all the learning of his country, replied that it really was too ridiculous to expect a king to expose himself to the fury of wild beasts in order to obtain a bride, and that though no one had a greater admiration for the princess Formosante than he, yet if he were slain by the lion, he would not be able to marry her any the more. This was quite true, and the King of India entirely agreed with him. Indeed, they went so far as to say that King Belus was making a jest of them, and that it would be necessary to bring large armies from their respective kingdoms in order to punish him. When between them they had dethroned him, they could then draw lots for Formosante.

Thus grumbling, they each sent off a messenger ordering a levy of three hundred thousand men to be raised without delay.

The King of Scythia, however, gave utterance to no complaints, but descended into the arena, a curved sword in his hand. Not that he was desperately in love with the beautiful Formosante; it was a passion for glory and for no woman which had brought him to Babylon, and when he saw that his two rivals had no intention of fighting the lion, he was filled with delight. He was not afraid of any lion that trod the earth; of course, he might not be able to kill it, and it might even kill him, but after all, a man could only die once.

The lion, when he rushed out from his cage, looked capable of swallowing all three kings at one mouthful, so large and fierce was he. But the King of Scythia stood firm and plunged his sword at the beast's throat. Unluckily the point of it hit against his teeth and broke into splinters, and the lion, with a roar which shook the amphitheatre to its foundation, buried his claws deep in the thighs of his enemy. Another minute and all would have been over, had not the young stranger leapt to the king's side, and, seizing a sword from the belt of an attendant, cut off the lion's head at a single blow. He next produced a little box of ointment, which he begged the king to rub into his wounds.

'It was only an accident,' he said, 'that prevented you from vanquishing the lion, and your courage is still as untarnished as if he lay dead at your feet.'

These words pleased the king even more than the ointment which was to cure his hurts; and full of gratitude he returned to his tent.

Left alone in the arena, the stranger turned to his attendant, and bade him wash the lion's head in the stream that ran below the amphitheatre, and, when that was done, to take out the teeth of the beast, and put in their place diamonds of the same size, which he produced from his sash. As soon as all was ready the young man said to the bird which had remained perched on his shoulder: 'Fair bird, I wish you to carry the head of this lion, and lay it at the feet of Formosante.'

So the bird carried the lion's head, bowing himself low before her as he placed it on the ground, and the diamonds in the mouth shone so brightly that the whole court was dazzled with their brilliance. Indeed, the bird itself was hardly less wonderful, with his beak of coral and his claws of silver mixed with purple. No peacock possessed so splendid a tail, and though his size was that of an eagle, his eyes were gentle as well as piercing. The ladies crowded round him to pat his head and stroke his golden feathers, but though he was polite to them all, he would not be tempted away from the princess. Everyone agreed that they had never beheld anything like the grace with which he received the biscuits and pistachio nuts offered him by Formosante, or the elegant gestures with which he conveyed them to his beak.

Meanwhile Belus had been considering attentively the diamonds in the lion's mouth and had made up his mind about the young stranger.

'It is plain,' he said, 'that he is the son either of the King of China, or of that part of the world known as Europe, or of Africa, which is, I am told, on the borders of Egypt. At any rate, let a magnificent feast be prepared for him.' At the same time, he ordered his equerry to ask the unknown, with all possible respect, who he was.

The stranger was about to answer, when there suddenly arrived on the scene a third unicorn ridden by a man very plainly dressed. He quickly dismounted and, addressing the victor, told him that Ocmar, his father, had only a short time to live and that they must start at once if his son wished to see him alive.

'Let us go then,' replied the young stranger; then turning to the king he added: 'Deign, sire, to permit the princess to accept the bird which I am leaving behind me. They are both of them unique.' He bowed to the king and to the spectators, and went down the marble steps to where his unicorn was waiting, but not before the equerry had obtained the information desired by Belus, and learned that the dying Ocmar was an old shepherd much respected in the neighbourhood of his home.

Nothing could equal the surprise of Belus and his daughter on hearing this news. In fact, the king refused to believe it, and desired the equerry to ride after the stranger at once, and find out more about him. But the unicorns went like the wind, and no traces could be seen of them, even from the platform of the highest towers.

Although the equerry had taken care that his words should be overheard by nobody but the king and the princess, yet somehow the news that the man who had fulfilled all the oracle's conditions was only a shepherd's son, speedily leaked out. For a long while no one talked of anything else, as is the way of courts—and other places—and it was generally held that it was a bad joke of the attendant's, who ought to have known better. One of the ladies-in-waiting went so far as to explain that the word 'shepherd' might actually mean a king, because kings were set to guard their flocks; but she found no one to agree with her. As to Formosante, she never said anything at all, but sat silently stroking her bird.

King Belus did not know what to do, and as always happened on these occasions he summoned his council, though he never paid any attention to what they said, or would have said, had they not known it to be useless. He talked to them for some time and at length decided that he would at once go and consult the oracle as to his best course, and return to tell them the result.

When he entered the council chamber after a very short absence, he looked puzzled and crestfallen.

'The oracle declares that my daughter will never be married till she has travelled all over the world,' said he. 'But how can a princess of Babylon, who never has stepped beyond the bounds of the park, "travel over the world"? It is absurd! indeed, if it were not sacrilege to utter such things of an oracle, I should say it was impertinent. Really, the oracle has not a spark of common-sense!' and the council was of opinion that it certainly had not.

Although there was no triumphant bridegroom to grace the feast commanded by King Belus, it was held, as arranged, in the great hall where the turning roof, painted with stars, caused you to feel as if you were dining under the sky. Everything was on a scale of splendour never before seen in Babylon during the thirty thousand years of its existence; but perhaps the feast could hardly be considered a success, for the guests neither spoke nor ate, so absorbed were they in watching the incomparable manner in which the bird flew about from one to another, bearing the choicest dishes in his beak. At least, the only people who did speak were the King of Scythia and the Princess AldÉe, the cousin of Formosante and scarcely less beautiful than she. To him, AldÉe confided that it was she who, by law, should have been Queen of Babylon, but that on the death of her grandfather his younger son had usurped her father's rights.

'However,' she ended, in answer to a question put by the King of Scythia; 'I prefer Scythia with you to Babylon's crown without you.'

There never was any mistaking what AldÉe meant.

'But I will avenge your father,' cried the king. 'In two days from now you shall fly with me back to Scythia, and when I return it will be at the head of three hundred thousand men.' And so it was settled.

Everyone was glad to go to bed early after the fatigues of the day, and all slept soundly, except Formosante. She had carried the bird with her, and placed him on an orange-tree which stood on a silver tub in her room, and bidden him good-night. But tired as she was she could not close her eyes, for the scenes she had witnessed in the arena passed one by one before her. At length she could bear it no longer:

'He will never come back! Never!' she cried, sobbing.

'Yes, he will, Princess,' answered the bird from the orange-tree. 'Who, that has once seen you, could live without seeing you again?'

Formosante was so astonished to hear the bird speak—and in the very best ChaldÆan—that she ceased weeping and drew the curtains.

'Are you a magician or one of the gods in the shape of a bird?' asked she. 'Oh! if you are more than man, send him back to me!'

'I am only the bird I seem,' answered the voice; 'but I was born in the days when birds and beasts of all sorts talked familiarly with men. I held my peace before the court because I feared they would take me for a magician.'

'But how old are you?' she inquired in amazement.

'Twenty-seven thousand nine hundred years and six months,' replied the bird. 'Exactly the same age as the change that takes place in the heavens known as the "precession of the equinoxes," but there are many creatures now existing on the earth far older than I. It is about twenty-two thousand years since I learned ChaldÆan. I have always had a taste for it. But in this part of the world the other animals gave up speaking when men formed the habit of eating them.'