He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm
of her hand. "What a lovely bit of glass," cried the little girl;
and she ran home, laughing.

Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. "You are blind now," he
said, "so I will stay with you always."

"No, little Swallow," said the poor Prince, "you must go away to
Egypt."

"I will stay with you always," said the Swallow, and he slept at
the Prince's feet.

All the next day he sat on the Prince's shoulder, and told him
stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the
red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and
catch gold-fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the
world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the
merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry
amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the
Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of
the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty
priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail
over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with
the butterflies.

"Dear little Swallow," said the Prince, "you tell me of marvellous
things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men
and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my
city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there."