'Then,' said the prince, 'I choose this beautiful bird.' As the prince spoke Fantosina began to sing, for although she had made up her mind she could never be other than a bird as long as she lived, she had already grown to love the prince so dearly that she felt pleased at the idea of going away with him. The prince was to set forth at four o'clock the same afternoon, and from the window where her cage hung Fantosina could see the people making ready for his departure. When the four white horses were put into his carriage, she began to fear lest she should be forgotten, and to remind the prince, she began to sing her loudest. Presently Abdullah came to the room and climbed on to a chair to take down the cage, which he carried outside the palace. The king and queen and several courtiers stood around the prince to bid him farewell, and when Abdullah joined the group with the cage in his hand, the king felt ashamed of the smallness of his gift. 'I fear,' he said, as Abdullah handed the cage to the prince, 'you will find the bird troublesome on your journey.' 'No,' answered the prince, 'I shall not find it in the least troublesome, because I do not intend to take it on my journey.' And Fantosina felt deeply disappointed to think she was going to be left behind after all. But the next moment the prince held the cage above his head and opened the door. The instant the door was opened Fantosina flew out of the cage, but Abdullah, thinking she had escaped by an accident and that the prince would be disappointed to lose the bird, ran after her, followed by the prince, who vainly called to him to come back. The king followed his guest, from politeness, but at a slower pace, and even the queen and the courtiers walked in the same direction. Fantosina felt almost too much excited to fly; after her confinement in the cage, her wings were a little stiff too, so that long before she reached the cowslip bank, she feared she might fall exhausted to the ground and be caught again. Then she wondered whether she find all the cowslips dead, and this idea alarmed her so much that she flew slower and slower, though she tried to fly faster and faster. Abdullah was close to her tail, the prince a little behind him, the king was in the next field, and the queen and the courtiers in the next but one. As Fantosina drew near to the bank, she could not see one cowslip; at last she was exactly over the bank, and just as she felt she could not fly another yard, she saw a single cowslip under her claws. In an instant she dropped to the ground, and at the same moment Abdullah seized her tail. But Fantosina put forth her beak as far as it would go and just succeeded in touching the pale yellow petal of the one cowslip which was left. To the astonishment of Abdullah and of the prince, the blue bird with the scarlet wings disappeared and in its place stood the most beautiful princess the prince had ever seen. 'Fantosina!' exclaimed Abdullah.