Fearing to lose the
talisman, he ran after the bird; but it flew on before him,
keeping just out of his reach, and drew him on from place to
place and from hill to hill, till the night came on and the air
grew dark, when it roosted on a high tree. Kemerezzeman stopped
under the tree, confounded and faint for hunger and weariness,
and giving himself up for lost, would have turned back, but knew
not the way, for the darkness had overtaken him. So he
exclaimed, 'There is no power and no virtue but in God the Most
High, the Supreme!' and lying down under the tree, slept till
the morning, when he awoke and saw the bird also awake and fly
away. He arose and walked after it, and it flew on little by
little before him, after the measure of his going; at which he
smiled and said, 'By Allah, this is a strange thing! Yesterday,
the bird flew before me as fast as I could run; and to-day,
knowing that I am tired and cannot run, it flieth after the
measure of my walking. By Allah, this is wonderful! But,
whether it lead me to my death or to my life, I must needs follow
it, wherever it goeth, for it will surely not abide save in some
inhabited land. So he followed the bird, eating of the fruits
of the earth and drinking of its waters, for ten days' space, and
every night the bird roosted on a tree.
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