The Wanderings of Vicram Maharajah

But, having no power to preserve it, his spirit had no sooner left it than it began to decay and at the end of three days it was quite destroyed, so that the unhappy man had no alternative but to remain where he was.

Meantime the real Vicram Maharajah had flown, in the form of a parrot, very far away until he reached a large banyan tree where there were a thousand other pretty pollies, whom he joined, making their number a thousand and one. Every day the parrots flew away to get food, and every night they returned to roost in the great banyan tree.

Now it chanced that a hunter had often gone through that part of the jungle, and noticed the banyan tree and all the parrots. He said to himself, "If I could only catch the thousand and one parrots that nightly roost in that tree, I would have plenty of curry for a long, long time." But he could not do it, though he often tried, for the trunks of the tree were tall, straight and very slippery, so that he no sooner climbed up a little way, than he slid down again. However, he did not stop looking and longing for them.

One day, a heavy shower of rain drove all the parrots back earlier than usual to their tree. When they got there, they found a thousand crows who had stopped at their tree on their homeward flight to shelter themselves there till the storm was over.

Vicram Maharajah's parrot said to the other parrots, "Look! These crows have all sorts of seeds and fruits in their beaks which they are carrying home to their little ones. We must quickly drive them away before some of these fall down under our tree and then spring up strong plants that will twine around the trunks, and enable our enemy the hunter to climb up with ease and kill us all."

But the other parrots said, "That is a very far-fetched idea! We musn't drive the poor birds away from shelter in this pouring rain." So the crows were not driven away.