"can bring no help; I and my house and my
people are doomed." He turned him about to die; for he was grown very
feeble from hunger and thirst and suffering, and felt that his end was
near. In truth, he wanted to die, and be released from pain. For long
hours he lay without thought or feeling or motion. Then his senses
returned. The dawn of the third morning was breaking. Ah, the world
seemed very beautiful to those worn eyes. Suddenly a great longing to
live rose up in the lad's heart, and from his soul welled a deep and
fervent prayer that Heaven would have mercy upon him and let him see
his home and his friends once more. In that instant a soft, a faint, a
far-off sound, but oh, how inexpressibly sweet to his waiting ear, came
floating out of the distance:

"Waw... he! waw... he! Waw-he!--waw-he!--waw-he!"

"That, oh, that song is sweeter, a thousand times sweeter than the voice
of the nightingale, thrush, or linnet, for it brings not mere hope, but
certainty of succor; and now, indeed, am I saved! The sacred singer has
chosen itself, as the oracle intended; the prophecy is fulfilled, and my
life, my house, and my people are redeemed. The ass shall be sacred from
this day!"

The divine music grew nearer and nearer, stronger--and stronger and ever
sweeter and sweeter to the perishing sufferer's ear. Down the declivity
the docile little donkey wandered, cropping herbage and singing as he
went; and when at last he saw the dead horse and the wounded king, he
came and snuffed at them with simple and marveling curiosity. The king
petted him, and he knelt down as had been his wont when his little
mistress desired to mount. With great labor and pain the lad drew
himself upon the creature's back, and held himself there by aid of the
generous ears. The ass went singing forth from the place and carried
the king to the little peasant-maid's hut. She gave him her pallet for
a bed, refreshed him with goat's milk, and then flew to tell the great
news to the first scouting-party of searchers she might meet.

The king got well. His first act was to proclaim the sacredness and
inviolability of the ass; his second was to add this particular ass to
his cabinet and make him chief minister of the crown; his third was to
have all the statues and effigies of nightingales throughout his kingdom
destroyed, and replaced by statues and effigies of the sacred donkey;
and, his fourth was to announce that when the little peasant maid should
rea