A Great while ago a man in a stripéd jacket went travelling almost to the verge of the world, and there he came upon a region of green fertility, quiet sounds, and sharp colour; save for one tiny green mound it was all smooth and even, as level as the moon’s face, so flat that you could see the sky rising up out of the end of everything like a blue dim cliff. He passed into a city very populous and powerful, and entered the shop of a man who sold birds in traps of wicker, birds of rare kinds, the flame-winged antillomeneus and kriffs with green eyes.  
“Sir,” said he to the hawker of birds, “this should be a city of great occasions, it has the smell of opulence. But it is all unknown to me, I have not heard the story of its arts and policy, or of its people and their governors. What annalists have you recording all its magnificence and glory, or what poets to tell if its record be just?”
 
The hawker of birds replied: “There are tales and the tellers of tales.”
 
“I have not heard of these,” said the other, “tell me, tell me.”
 
The bird man drew finger and thumb downwards from the bridge of his long nose to its extremity, and sliding the finger across his pliant nostrils said: “I will tell you.” They both sat down upon a coffer of wheat. “I will tell you,” repeated the bird man, and he asked the other if he had heard of the tomb in which none could lie, nor die, nor mortify.
 
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“No,” said he.
 
“Or of the oracle that destroys its interpreter?”
 
“No,” answered the man in the stripéd jacket, and a talking bird in a cage screamed: “No, no, no, no!” The traveller whistled caressingly to the bird, tapping his finger nail along the rods of its cage, while the bird man continued: “Or of Fax, Mint, and Bombassor, the three faithful brothers?”
 
“No,” replied he again.
 
“They had a sister of beauty, of beauty indeed, beyond imagination. (Soo-eet! soo-eet! chirped the oracular bird.) It smote even the hearts of kings like a reaping hook among grass, and her favour was a ransom from death itself, as I will tell you.”
 
“Friend,” said he of the stripéd jacket, “tell me of that woman.”
 
“I will tell you,” answered the other; and he told him, and this was the way of it.
 
There was once a king of this country, mighty with riches and homage, with tribute from his enemies—for he was a great warrior—and the favour of many excellent queens. His ancestors were numberless as the hairs of his black beard; so ancient was his lineage that he may have sprung from divinity itself, but he had a heart of brass, his bowels were of lead, and at times he was afflicted with madness.
 
One day he called for his captain of the guard, Tanil, a valiant, debonair man of much courtesy, and delivered to him his commands.
 
Tanil took a company of the guard and they208 marched to that green hill on the plain—it is but a league away. At the foot of the hill they crossed a stream; beyond that was a white dwelling and a garden; at the gate of the garden was a stumbling stone; a flock grazed on the hill. The soldiers threw down the stone and, coming into the vineyard, they hacked down the vines until they heard a voice call to them. They saw at the door of the white dwelling a woman so beautiful that the weapons slid from their hands at the wonder of it. “Friends, friends!” said she. Tanil told her the King’s bidding, how they must destroy the vineyard, the dwelling, and the flock, and turn Fax, Mint, and Bombassor, with the foster sister Flaune, out from the kingdom of Cumac.
 
“You have denied the King tribute,” said he.
 
“We are wanderers from the eastern world,” Flaune answered. “Is not the mountain a free mountain? Does not this stream divide it from Cumac’s country?”
 
She took Tanil into the white dwelling and gave a pitcher of wine to his men.
 
“Sir,” said she to Tanil, “I will go to your King. Take me to your King.”
 
And when Tanil agreed to do this she sent a message secretly to her brothers to drive the flock away into a hiding-place. So while Flaune was gone a-journeying to the palace with Tanil’s troup, Fax, Mint, and Bombassor set back the stumbling stone and took away the sheep.
 
The King was resting in his palace garden, throwing crumbs into the lake, and beans to his peacocks, but when Flaune was brought to him he rose and209 bowed himself to the pavement at her feet. The woman said nothing, she walked to and fro before him, and he was content to let his gaze rest upon her. The carp under the fountain watched them, the rose drooped on its envious briar, the heart of King Cumac was like a tree full of chirping birds.
 
Tanil confessed his fault; might the King be merciful and forgive him! but the lady had taken their trespass with a soft temper and policy that had overcome both his loyalty and his mind. It was unpardonable, but it was not guilt, it was infirmity, she had bewitched him. Cumac grinned and nodded. He bade Tanil return to the vineyard and restore the vines, bade him requite the brothers and confirm them in those pastures for ever. But as to this Flaune he would not let her go.
 
She paces before him, or she dips her palm into the fountain, spilling its drops upon the ground; she smiles and she is silent.
 
Cumac gave her into the care of his groom of the women, Yali, the sister of Tanil, and thereafter, every day and many a day, the King courted and coveted Flaune. But he could not take her; her pride, her cunning words, and her lustre bore her like an anchored boat upon the tide of his purpose. At one moment full of pride and gloom, and in the next full of humility and love, he would bring gifts and praises.
 
“I will cover you,” he whispered,210 “with green garnets and jargoons. A collar of onyx and ruby, that is for you; breastknots of beryl, and rings for the finger, wrist, and ear. Take them, take them! For you I would tear the moon asunder.”
 
But all her desire was only to return to the green mountain and her brothers and the flock by the stumbling stone. The King was merged in anger and in grief.
 
“Do not so,” he pleaded, “I have given freedom to your men; will you not give freedom to me?”
 
“What freedom, Cumac?” she asked him.
 
And he said: “Love.”
 
“How may the bound give freedom?”
 
“With the gift of love.”
 
“The spirit of the gift lies only in the giver.” Her voice was mournful and low.
 
He was confused and cast down. “You humble me with words, but words are nothing, beautiful one. Put on your collar of onyx, and fasten your breastknots of beryl. Have I not griefs, fierce griefs, that crash upon my brain, and frenzies that shoot in fire! Does not your voice—that rest-recovering lure—allay them, your presence numb them! I cannot let you go, I cannot let you go.”
 
“He who woos and does not win,” so said Flaune, “wins what he does not woo for.”
 
“Though I beg but a rose,” murmured the King, “do you offer me a sword?”
 
“Time’s sword is laid at the breast of every rose.”
 
“But I am your lowly servant,” he cried. “You have that which all secretly seek and denyingly long for; it is seen without sight and affirmed without speech.”
 
“What is the thing you seek and long for?”
 
“Purity,” said he.
 
“Purity!” She seemed to muse upon it as a211 theme of mystery. “If you found purity, what would you match it with?”
 
“My sins!” he cried again. “Would you waste purity on purity, or mingle sin with sin?”
 
“Cumac,” said the wise woman, with no pride then but only pity, “you seek to conquer that which strikes the conqueror dead.”
 
Then, indeed, for a while he was mute, and then for a while he talked of his sickness and his frenzy. “Are there not charms,” he asked, “or magic herbs, to find and bind these demons?”
 
There was no charm—she told him—but the mind, and no magic but in the tranquillity of freedom.
 
“I do not know this,” he sighed, “it will never be known.”
 
The unknown—she told him—was better than the known.
 
“Alas, then,” sighed the King again, “I shall never discover it.”
 
“It is everywhere,” said Flaune, “but it is like a sweet herb that withers in the ground. All may gather it—and it is not gathered. All may see it—and it is not seen. All destroy it—and it never dies....”
 
“Shall I be a little wind,” laughed Cumac, “and gush among this grass?”
 
“It is the wind’s way among the roses. It has horns of bright brass and quiet harps of silver. Its golden boats flash in every tossing bay.”
 
Cumac laughed again, but still he would not let her go.212 “The fox has many tricks, the cat but one,” he said, and caused her ankles to be fastened with two jewelled links tied with a hopple of gold. But in a day he struck them from her with his own hands, and hung the hopple upon her lustrous neck.
 
And still he would not let her go; so Yali and Tanil connived to send news to the brothers, and in a little time Bombassor came to her aid.
 
Bombassor was a dancer without blemish, in beauty or movement either. He came into the palace to Cumac who did not know him, and the King’s household came to the beaten gongs to witness the art of Bombassor. Yali brought Flaune a harp of ivory, and to its music Bombassor caracoled and spun before the delighted King. Then Flaune (who spoke as a stranger to him) asked Bombassor if he would dance with her, and he said they would take the dance of “The Flying Ph?nix.” The King was enchanted; he vowed he would grant any wish of Bombassor’s, any wish; yes, he would cut the moon in half did he desire it. “I will dance for your pledge,” said Bombassor.
 
It seemed to the King then as if a little whirling wind made of flame, and a music that was perfume, gyred and rose before him: the tapped gongs, the tinkle of harp, the surprise of Flaune’s swaying and reeling, now coy, now passionate, the lure of her wooing arms, the rhythm of her flying feet, the chanting of the onlookers, and the flashing buoyance of Bombassor, so thrilled and distracted him that he shouted like an eager boy.
 
But when Bombassor desired Cumac to give him the maiden Flaune, the King was astonished.213 “No, no,” he said, “but give him an urn full of diamonds,” and Bombassor was given an urn full of diamonds. He let it fall at the King’s feet, and the gems clattered upon the pavement like a heap of peas. “Give him Yali, then,” Cumac shouted. Yali was a nymph of splendour, but Bombassor called aloud, “No, a pledge is a pledge!”
 
Then the King’s joy went from him and, like a star falling, left darkness and terror.
 
“Take,” he cried, “an axe to his head and pitch it to the crows.”
 
And so was Bombassor destroyed, while the King continued ignorantly to woo his sister. Silent and proud was she, silent and proud, but her beauty began to droop until Yali and Tanil, perceiving this, connived again to send to her brothers, and in a little time Mint came. To race on foot he was fleeter than any of Cumac’s champions; they strove with him, but he was like the unreturning wind, and although they cunningly moved the bounds of the course, and threw thorns and rocks under his feet, he defeated them all, and the King jeered at his own champions. Then Mint called for an antelope to be set in the midst of the plain and cried: “Who will catch this for the King?” All were amazed and Cumac said: “Whoever will do it I will give him whatever a King may give, though I crack the moon for it.”
 
The men let go the hind and it swooped away, Mint pursuing. Fast and far they sped until no man’s gaze could discern them, but in a while Mint returned bearing the breathing hind upon his back. “Take off his shoes,” cried the King,214 “and fill them with gold.” But when this was done Mint spilled the gold back at the King’s feet.
 
“Give me,” said he, “this maiden Flaune.”
 
The King grinned and refused him.
 
“Was it not in the bond?” asked Mint.
 
“Ay,” replied Cumac, “but choose again.”
 
“Is this then a King’s bond?” sneered Mint.
 
“It was a living bond,” said the King, “but death can sever it. Let this dog be riven in sunder and his bowels spilled to the foxes.” Mint died on the moment, and Cumac continued ignorantly to woo his sister.
 
Then Flaune conferred with Tanil and with Yali about a means of escape. Tanil feared to be about this, but he loved Flaune, and his sister Yali persuaded him. He showed them a great door in the back of the palace, a concealed issue through the city wall, from which Flaune might go in a darkness could but the door be opened. But it had not been opened for a hundred years, and they feared the hinges would shriek and the wards grind in the lock and so discover them.
 
“Let us bring oil to-morrow,” they said, “and oil it.”
 
In the morning they brought oil to the hinge and brushed it with drops from a cock’s feather. The hinge gave up its squeak but yet it groaned. They filled Yali’s thimble that was made of tortoise horn and poured this upon it. The hinge gave up its groan but yet it sighed. They filled the eggshell of a goose with oil and poured upon the hinge until it was silent. Then they turned to the lock, which, as they threw215 back the wards, cried clack, clack. Tanil lapped the great key with ointment, but still the lock clattered. He filled his mouth with oil and spat into the hole, but still it clinked. Then Flaune caught a grasshopper which she dipped in oil and cast into the lock. After that the lock was silent too.
 
On the mid of night Tanil ushered Flaune to the great door, and it opened in peace. She said “Farewell” to him tenderly, and vanished away into the darkness, and so to the green mountain. As he stooped, watching her until his eyes could see no more, the door suddenly closed and locked against him, leaving him outside the wall. Lights came, and an outcry and a voice roaring: “Tanil is fled with the King’s mistress. Turn out the guard.” Tanil knew it to be the voice of a jealous captain, and, filled with consternation, he too turned and fled away into the night; not towards the mountains, but to the sea, hoping to catch a ship that would deliver him.
 
Throughout the night he was going, striving or sleeping, and it was stark noon before he came to the shore and passed over the strait in a ship conveying merchants to a fair where no one knew him and all were friendly. He hobnobbed with the merchants for several days, feeding and sleeping in the booths until the morning of the sixth day, and on that day a crier came into the fair ringing and bawling, bawling and ringing, and what he cried was this:
 
That King Cumac, Lord of the Forty Kingdoms, Prince of the Moon, and Chieftain under God, laid a ban upon all who should aid or relieve his treacherous servant Tanil, who had conspired against the King216 and fled. Furthermore it was to be known that Yali, the sister of Tanil, was taken as hostage for him, that if he failed to redeem her and deliver up his own body Yali herself was doomed to perish at sunset of the seventh day after his flight.
 
Tanil scarcely waited to hear the conclusion, for he had but one day more and he could suffer not his sister Yali to die. He turned from the fair and ran to the sea. As he ran he slipped upon a rock and was stunned, but a good wife restored him and soon he reached the harbour. Here none of the sailors would convey him over the strait, for they were bound to the merchantmen who intended not to sail that day. Having so little time to reckon Tanil offered them bribes (but in vain), and threats (but they would not), and he was in torment and anguish until he came to an old man who said he would take him within the hour if the wind held and the tide turned. But if the wind failed, although the tide should ebb never so kindly, yet he............