It was only through Dom Manuel's happening to
arise very early one morning, at the call of nature, that he chanced to
be passing through the hall when, at the moment of sunrise, the
night-porter turned into an orange-colored rat, and crept into the
wainscoting: and Manuel of course said nothing about this to anybody,
because it was none of his affair.
[Illustration]
XXVIII
How Melicent Was Welcomed
So the month passed prosperously and uneventfully, while the servitors
of Queen Freydis behaved in every respect as if they were human beings:
and at the end of the month the stork came.
Manuel and Niafer, it happened, were fishing on the river bank rather
late that evening, when they saw the great bird approaching, high
overhead, all glistening white in the sunset, except for his thin
scarlet legs and the blue shadowings in the hollows of his wings. From
his beak depended a largish bundle, in pale blue wrappings, so that at a
glance they knew the stork was bringing a girl.
Statelily the bird lighted on the window sill, as though he were quite
familiar with this way of entering Manuel's bedroom, and the bird went
in, carrying the child.
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