rothed to each other: it was, of course, what they wanted, and
indeed what they lived for. Then they returned to a nest, and there
the quarrelling began afresh; for in hot countries people are almost
all violent and passionate. But for all that it was pleasant,
especially for the old people, who watched them with great joy: all
that their young ones did suited them. Every day here there was
sunshine, plenty to eat, and nothing to think of but pleasure. But
in the rich castle of their Egyptian host, as they called him,
pleasure was not to be found. The rich and mighty lord of the castle
lay on his couch, in the midst of the great hall, with its many
colored walls looking like the centre of a great tulip; but he was
stiff and powerless in all his limbs, and lay stretched out like a
mummy. His family and servants stood round him; he was not dead,
although he could scarcely be said to live. The healing moor-flower
from the north, which was to have been found and brought to him by her
who loved him so well, had not arrived. His young and beautiful
daughter who, in swan's plumage, had flown over land and seas to the
distant north, had never returned. She is dead, so the two
swan-maidens had said when they came home; and they made up quite a
story about her, and this is what they told,--

"We three flew away together through the air," said they: "a
hunter caught sight of us, and shot at us with an arrow. The arrow
struck our young friend and sister, and slowly singing her farewell
song she sank down, a dying swan, into the forest lake. On the
shores of the lake, under a spreading birch-tree, we laid her in the
cold earth. We had our revenge; we bound fire under the wings of a
swallow, who had a nest on the thatched roof of the huntsman. The
house took fire, and burst into flames; the hunter was burnt with
the house, and the light was reflected over the sea as far as the
spreading birch, beneath which we laid her sleeping dust. She will
never return to the land of Egypt." And then they both wept. And
stork-papa, who heard the story, snapped with his beak so that it
might be heard a long way off.

"Deceit and lies!" cried he; "I should like to run my beak deep
into their chests."

"And perhaps break it off," said the mamma stork, "then what a
sight you would be. Think first of yourself, and then of your
family; all others are nothing to us."

"Yes, I know," said the stork-papa; "but to-morrow I can easily
place myself on t