In terror and peril, the traveler passed the night thinking of the home- nest, and the gentle mate who would so gladly shield him from the storm with her own pinions, and who was even now grieving her life away in loneliness, because he came not.
But whatever feelings of penitence may have been cherished during the perils of the night, were quickly dissipated by the beauty of the morning light.
“From the east then drew the sun, His golden poniard bright, And through the earth’s dark regions Spread a flood of yellow light.”
Bāzindah again arose upon his faithful wings, and pursued his journey; but a royal white falcon was abroad looking for prey,—a falcon which descends upon the head of its quarry, swifter than the rays of the sun, and when soaring on high he reaches heaven quicker than the sight of man.
“Attacking now, it left the thunderbolt behind, And soared more swiftly than the chilling wind.”
For the pitiless bird had marked the pigeon for his prey, and the victim’s heart began to flutter, while his wings, paralyzed with fear, seemed to lose all power of motion.
“When on the dove the rapid falcon swoops, The helpless quarry unresisting droops.”
In that moment of helpless terror, Bāzindah thought again of his faithful mate, and quickly resolved that could he but escape this deadly peril, he would be content at home in her downy nest. He was already beneath the claw of the falcon, when the flashing eye of an eagle fell upon them,—an eagle whose talons were so sharp that the sign of Aquila was not safe in the nest of the sky, and who, when hungry, carried off from the meadows of heaven the signs of Aries and Capricorn.
“Aries itself, through fear of him Would gaze not on the sky, Save that Bāhram,[229] the blood drinker Each day stood watchful by.”
This fearful bird was on the wing searching for food, and seeing the falcon and the pigeon, he said to himself, “Although this pigeon is only a mouthful, nevertheless one may break one’s fast upon it,” and quickly he dashed at the falcon:
“The feathered rivals then to fight began, The quarry, dodging, from between them ran.”
While the fight went fiercely on, Bāzindah threw himself under a stone, and crowded himself into a hole hardly large enough for a sparrow, and here he passed the day and another night, quivering with terror and distress. But the morning light again illumined the mountain peaks, for the white-pinioned dove of the dawn began to fly from the nest of heaven, and the black raven of night went to his rest like the Sīmūrgh, behind the shades of the distant mountains. Bāzindah began to flutter his weary wings, and look hungrily around him, when he gladly spied another pigeon, with a little grain scattered before him. Rejoicing to see one of his own species, he fluttered eagerly to the grain, but alas! his foot was caught in a snare.