I rubbed the lamp and summoned the Slave, who appeared promptly as before.

“I’m sorry to ask such a difficult thing, but can you catch the Roc for me and bring it here?” said I, somewhat apologetically.

“It shall be here, Master, in twenty minutes,” replied the Slave imperturbably, vanishing again at a wave from my hand.

“I don’t know, I’m sure, what I want diamonds for, when I have such a willing servant,” I grumbled, still rather unwilling to venture upon what I regarded as an uncanny undertaking.

“He can’t provide you with money,” said Shin Shira.

“Why not?” I asked.

“He’d have either to steal it or make it.  If he did the latter it wouldn’t be legal, and, besides, if it was found out, you might be arrested for circulating unauthorised coin.”

“Oh, very well, then, let’s go on this wild-goose chase if you’re so bent upon it,” I said, seeing that he was determined to have his way.  A few minutes later we heard a great commotion in the courtyard, and looking from the balcony we saw my Slave carrying by the legs an enormous bird, who turned his head about from side to side, staring stupidly at everything around him.  Shin Shira bustled about and got ropes and straps, and with the assistance of the landlord and one or two onlookers, we were soon harnessed in quite an ingenious manner to the claws of our strange steed (if one may call him so).

[Illustration:  “His pinions were strong and mighty.”]

The Slave released him, and the Roc immediately flew slowly up into the air, violently shaking his claws now and then in a vain endeavour to get rid of the unusual weight.  Fortunately, however, the straps and ropes, which had been fastened over the bird’s back as well, were very strong, and so the worst thing that happened to us was a thorough shaking.

This was of no consequence, and when I realised that I was quite safe, I began actually to enjoy the strange experience of being carried through the air, I knew not whither.  In this case, however, the distance was not nearly so great as one might have expected, for leaving the city, the great bird soared over a tract of forest land, above one or two more towns, and so out into the open desert, in the midst of which was a range of rocky mountains.  His pinions were strong and mighty, so that he flew very rapidly, and in a little less than two hours he had alighted on a kind of tableland, at the top of one of the mountain peaks, and we were at our journey’s end.

There was no doubt but that we were at the right place, for the ground was strewn with stones which, though uncut, sparkled, in the places where they had been chipped or broken, with a hundred different brilliant colours and shades.

Shin Shira drew his knife and quickly cut the ropes and straps which bound us to the now struggling bird, and he was soon released from his uncomfortable burden.

He shook himself once or twice and preened his great feathers, and then stalked off to where an enormous nest could be seen in a cleft in the rocks.