The Magic Bed Part 6

"Indeed it won't," said Hazar to himself from behind the trees, where he was watching the ducks and the turtle; "you would have to hold your tongue, and that is something you could never do since you were born."

Hazar finished up the business he had on hand and then joined the King in his summer palace up in the hills and as soon as they found a stick which would bear the weight of the turtle, the ducks flew up into the air with the turtle between them.

How the fishes did laugh as they looked at the turtle hanging from the stick by his mouth. "Don't come back again, Talking Turtle," they called after him. "We can get along very well without you."

"I don't intend to come back! Keep your old pond to yourselves!" was what the turtle wanted to say in reply, but he did not dare to, because if he opened his mouth to speak he would tumble right back into the pond again.

So they flew on and on over the cities and villages and fields, and every time they stopped, the ducks cautioned the turtle to hold his tongue or he would be killed.

Then one day as they were flying over a field, a woman who was working there called out, "Two wild ducks are carrying a turtle along on a stick!"

This made the turtle so angry that he wanted to say, "You miserable woman, what is it to you?" but he controlled himself, although he bit the stick half way through in his rage.

After a while the ducks and the turtle came to the mountains and flew directly over King Badahur's summer palace. Some boys in the town below threw sticks at the ducks and called out to them, "Drop that fat old turtle. We'll make soup of him!"

This made the turtle so angry that he could no longer keep silence. He started to say, "Soup! You shall be made into soup yourselves, miserable children," but as he opened his mouth to utter the first word, he let go of the stick and crashed down into the courtyard of the palace, where the King and a number of his courtiers were walking.

Hazar ran to pick him up, but he was quite dead!

"What do you think of this?" asked the King of Hazar. "Did the turtle drop from the sky as a warning to us?"

"He was being carried through the air by two wild ducks," replied Hazar. "With your Majesty's permission I will tell you what I know about him." And then he told the King what he had heard and seen in the palace garden.

After Hazar had finished his story, the King was silent for a long time and then he said, "This disaster happened to the turtle because he could not hold his tongue."

Hazar bowed and the King was silent again. "It strikes me, Hazar," he said at last, "that at times I talk too much."

All the courtiers looked at Hazar, expecting him to deny that the King could talk too much, or to say that it was a pleasure to listen to anything the King had to say, but Hazar did nothing of the kind. He quietly said, as he looked the King straight in the face, "Happy is the kingdom where the king knows his own faults!"

"Happy is the king who has such a faithful counsellor as yourself, Hazar," responded the King. "To remind us of the fate of this turtle, we will have a golden one set up in the palace."

So a golden turtle was made and set up in one of the great halls of the palace, and whenever the King saw it he was reminded of the fate of the talkative turtle. He learned wisdom and discretion and how to keep silent when it was necessary, and instead of despising him, his subjects came to love and respect him.