When the King heard his weeping and wailing, he said, “Verily these birds have sweet voices and their song pleaseth me:  put them in cages.”  So they set them each in his own cage and hung them up at the King’s head that he might listen to their warbling.  On this wise Sayf al-Muluk and his Mamelukes abode and the blackamoors gave them to eat and drink:  and now they wept and now laughed, now spake and now were hushed, whilst the King of the blacks delighted in the sound of their voices.  And so they continued for a long time.  Now this King had a daughter married in another island who, hearing that her father had birds with sweet voices, sent a messenger to him seeking of him some of them.  So he sent her, by her Cossid,[FN#404] Sayf al-Muluk and three of his men in four cages; and, when she saw them, they pleased her and she bade hang them up in a place over her head.  The Prince fell to marvelling at that which had befallen him and calling to mind his former high and honourable estate and weeping for himself; and the three servants wept for themselves; and the King’s daughter deemed that they sang.  Now it was her wont, whenever any one from the land of Egypt or elsewhere fell into her hands and he pleased her, to advance him to great favour with her; and by the decree of Allah Almighty it befel that, when she saw Sayf al-Muluk she was charmed by his beauty and loveliness and symmetry and perfect grace, and she commanded to entreat him and his companions with honour and to loose them from their cages.  Now one day she took the Prince apart and would have him enjoy her; but he refused, saying, “O my lady, I am a banisht wight and with passion for a beloved one in piteous plight, nor with other will I consent to love-delight.”  Then she coaxed him and importuned him, but he held aloof from her, and she could not approach him nor get her desire of him by any ways and means.  At last, when she was weary of courting him in vain, she waxed wroth with him and his Mamelukes, and commanded that they should serve her and fetch her wood and water.  In such condition they abode four years till Sayf al-Muluk became weary of his life and sent to intercede with the Princess, so haply she might release them and let them wend their ways and be at rest from that their hard labour.  So she sent for him and said to him, “If thou wilt do my desire, I will free thee from this thy durance vile and thou shalt go to thy country, safe and sound.”  And she wept and ceased not to humble herself to him and wheedle him, but he would not hearken to her words; whereupon she turned from him, in anger, and he and his companions abode on the island in the same plight.  The islanders knew them for “The Princess’s birds” and durst not work them any wrong; and her heart was at ease concerning them, being assured that they could not escape from the island.  So they used to absent themselves from her two and three days at a time and go round about the desert parts in al directions, gathering firewood, which they brought