The Nightingale in the Mosque - The Story of the Sultan's Youngest Son and the Princess Flower o' the World

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"Yes, Princess, it was. I crept past the lion and the wolf and the tiger just after midnight while they slept. I blew out the four candles at the head of your bed and lighted those at the foot. The golden cage of the Nightingale was hanging from a golden chain. Before I unfastened it I looked at you once, as you lay sleeping, and dared not look a second time."

"Why not?" the Princess asked.

"Because, O Flower o' the World, you were so beautiful that I feared, were I to look again, I should forget the Nightingale Gisar and cry out in ecstacy."

Then the compassion in the Princess's heart changed to love and she knew for a certainty that this was the man she was fated to wed.

She clapped her hands and when the guards came in she said to them:

"Call my warriors together that I may show them the Sultan's Youngest Son and the man who stole from me my glorious Nightingale Gisar and whom I am fated to wed."

So the warriors came in until they crowded the tent to its utmost. Then the Princess stood up and took the Sultan's Youngest Son by the hand and presented him to the warriors and told them of his great bravery and courage and of all the perils he had endured in order to get the Nightingale Gisar for his father's mosque.

"He came to me now as a beggar," she said, "but I knew him at once for truth was in his mouth and courage in his eye. Behold, O warriors, your future lord!"

Then the warriors waved their swords and cried:

"Long live the Flower o' the World! Long live the Sultan's Youngest Son!"

All the Princess's army when they heard the news raised such a mighty shout that the people in the Sultan's city heard and were filled with dread not knowing what it meant. But soon they knew and then they, too, went mad with joy that what had threatened to be a war was turning to a wedding!

The Flower o' the World and her chief warriors and with them the Youngest Prince rode slowly to the city. The Prince was now dressed as befitted his rank and the Sultan when he saw him recognized him at once.