'But I will avenge your father,' cried the king. 'In two days from now you shall fly with me back to Scythia, and when I return it will be at the head of three hundred thousand men.' And so it was settled. * * * * * Everyone was glad to go to bed early after the fatigues of the day, and all slept soundly, except Formosante. She had carried the bird with her, and placed him on an orange-tree which stood on a silver tub in her room, and bidden him good-night. But tired as she was she could not close her eyes, for the scenes she had witnessed in the arena passed one by one before her. At length she could bear it no longer: 'He will never come back! Never!' she cried, sobbing. 'Yes, he will, Princess,' answered the bird from the orange-tree. 'Who, that has once seen you, could live without seeing you again?' Formosante was so astonished to hear the bird speak--and in the very best Chaldæan--that she ceased weeping and drew the curtains. 'Are you a magician or one of the gods in the shape of a bird?' asked she. 'Oh! if you are more than man, send him back to me!' 'I am only the bird I seem,' answered the voice; 'but I was born in the days when birds and beasts of all sorts talked familiarly with men. I held my peace before the court because I feared they would take me for a magician.' 'But how old are you?' she inquired in amazement. 'Twenty-seven thousand nine hundred years and six months,' replied the bird. 'Exactly the same age as the change that takes place in the heavens known as the "precession of the equinoxes," but there are many creatures now existing on the earth far older than I. It is about twenty-two thousand years since I learned Chaldæan. I have always had a taste for it. But in this part of the world the other animals gave up speaking when men formed the habit of eating them.' [Illustration: THE PRINCESS OF BABYLON AND THE PHOENIX] 'I never knew they did speak,' replied the Princess, deeply interested in spite of her woes. 'Not know that they spoke? Why, the earliest fables all begin with the words "Once upon a time when beasts talked," but that is long ago! Of course, many women still talk to their dogs, but the dogs determined not to answer them; they were so angry at being forced by whips to go and hunt their brothers. 'There are besides many stories which allude to conversations with horses, and their drivers still speak to them, as you know, but so very rudely that the horses which once loved men, now hate the whole race.' Formosante nodded her head; she had sometimes been shocked at the language of the Babylonian charioteers. 'The land where dwells my master,' continued the bird, 'is perhaps the only one in the world where animals are treated with proper respect, and where, therefore, they consent to live happily with man.' 'And where is that?' asked the Princess eagerly.