The dark eyes of the prince had a look of sadness in them, and there was a cloud, the first that Nahīd had ever seen upon his handsome brow; she drew closer within the sheltering arm, and her soft, dark eyes looked anxiously into his. His own heart read her pleading question, even before her lips had framed it, and then he told her of the loving mother who was grieving her life away amidst the splendors of another court—of the faithful heart that looked longingly for his return and refused to be comforted, because he came not. “But what can we do?” questioned the princess. “Thou canst not leave the wife to go even to the mother.” “No,” answered the prince, “but can I not take my bride with me? Can I not take my peerless pearl to the royal court which is my rightful inheritance? Can I not bear to her arms the beauteous daughter that I have given her? Surely my wife should receive my mother’s blessing! Let me take thee there before the faithful mother-heart is cold in death.” “But my father,” faltered Nahīd, “will he consent? Will he allow thee to bear me away to a strange land to claim the lost inheritance?” “The king should remember that not only filial love demands my return, but I can never make my bride the queen that she should be—I can never place a royal crown upon her lovely brow unless I return to the land of my fathers,” answered the prince; and then he told her, with loving thought, of the land where the palms grew higher by striving toward the sun, of the marble palaces of Istakhar, standing beside the river that came down from the heights rippling with low harmonies, as the waves dashed on the sanded shores; told her, too, of the mountains beyond the marble city, where the wild swans came to their nesting places,—white voyagers on the seas of blue, calling, in soft notes, down the line, while love was leading them homeward, to the sheltered nooks beside the pools of the mountain stream. Long they stayed in loving converse, and when they turned to the palace court, the prince had won from his bride a promise that she would see the king, and win, if possible, his consent to the long bridal trip, that she now looked forward to with pleasure. ROYAL CAVALCADE. The king listened patiently to the plea of Nahīd, for though he knew that the long journey would take her from him, perhaps forever, he also knew that the throne of Persia might be waiting for their coming, and at last he consented that the prince should bear his bride away to wear a crown in the halls of the proud Sassanian kings. But she should not go dowerless to the home of her husband. Keiwan therefore gave orders for the fitting out of a magnificent cavalcade, comprising a thousand camels of the purest Syrian blood, a thousand splendid Arabian steeds and a thousand Indian slaves, besides a military escort composed of the finest troops in the service of the king.