The forty men disarmed themselves and tied up their horses and sat in little bands playing games together. I would have stayed about the encampment making bread for the band, only that as I came near the tent where the kneading board was I heard a bird’s cry. I looked, and I saw on the wellhead near the Bird of Gold. The bird fluttered and flew as if she wanted me to watch her. I followed where she went and I was led far from the encampment. At the edge of the wilderness she went amongst low bushes, and after that I could not see her any more. Because I had seen the Bird of Gold once more I went back toward the encampment thinking about the days when I had lived in the hut of my father, the bramble gatherer, and about the day when I had left that hut, and had gone across the wilderness, and had seen the pillar on which was written that if I followed the road to the right I should come to my fortune, and about how I had come, not to my fortune, but back to the hut I had left; and I went on, thinking of how I had first heard of the Bird of Gold, and of how I had given her liberty when I might have held her for the great reward the King would have given. I went toward the encampment thinking these thoughts about myself, and thinking, too, of my master who had such fortune that men swore by the goodness of it. I made my way toward the tent where the kneading board was. And then I saw tents overturned and lying upon the ground. I saw the horses of the band straying over the plain. And when I looked to the citadel I saw it smoking with a fire that was burning it. There was no stir in all the encampment. I knew then that an army had come and had attacked my master and his forty men in the time that I was following the Bird of Gold or coming back from the place where she had led me. I went amongst the tents and I saw that the men had been killed. And I saw the purple beard of my master, cut off by some insolent enemy and left lying upon the ground. Then I ran over the trampled grass and made for the wilderness. And when I came into the wilderness I hid myself amongst the bushes that the Bird of Gold had flown into. I thought that a great army was pursuing me, and in truth I was very fearful. III. HOW BIRD-OF-GOLD CAME TO HER FORTUNE