Top of the World Stories for Boys and Girls

ce of Sh

gold and precious stones; and his ships, laden with the riches of India, sailed over every sea. When he appeared in his capital city, Ispahan, he was surrounded by a life guard of a thousand men dressed in silv

ny battles; many hostile cities had perished in ashes before his wrath; and many, many a knight ha

hielded the burning Persian sun, and a delightful breeze blew down from Mt. Zagrosch, the old Shah would seat himself in his richly ornamented palanquin borne b

that their father lived too long, and plotting against his life and his throne. Therefore the king drove them all away from his court to distant provinces which they ruled over as viceroy

he mother of the princess had come from the far North, no one knew exactly whence. She had been captured in her youth by African pirates, and after many

er "Lindagull," signifying that the princess was as lovely and pure

nd eyes as soft as August stars on a moonless night, she had also a heart noble, tender and good; and so there was no one in Shah Nadir's whole kingdom who did not love the Princess Lindagull; for the fame of her beauty and goodness had spread through all Persia. This the old king

decided that none of them was fit for succession to his throne; and he made up his mind to choose for his daughter som

iful; but he fell into the great error of allowing it to displace other loves and t

f a thousand flowers, stood the princess's lovely castle. In its lofty apartments the sunbeams broke through windows of limpid rock-crystal. The princess rested on the most elegant couch at night; and when morning came

ned to the songs of the birds or the music of the zither, or wandered in the

s old; but in the Eastern countries twelve years mak

t the playing of the butterflies, the fragrance of the flowers, the rippling of the waters, and the zither's sweet sounds pleased her no more. She realized that her heart was often empty, and noticed with surprise that she often had a desire to weep. She could not understand it at all, and still less cou

nce, into the rush and whirl of human life; and so, when her father next came to visit her, she asked that she might be allowed to see the great exhibition of wild beasts soon to be held at Ispahan in

could not fail to have many enemies. This, however, troubled him

f submission Shah Nadir had required the captive foe to suffer one of the greatest indignities of the East,-that

REFUSE HER NOTHING, H

nd his name was Bom Bali. Once, when warring in the far, far North, Bom Bali had captured a wizard nam

nd exhibition of wild beasts was to be held in Ispahan

thou wish

ard never grow less! Thou knowest th

rs into every mountain, even to mountains in our kingdom, to ensnare fierce creatures for the contests. Take upon thyself the form of a t

l all thy commands," s

captured alive all the wild beasts they could from its mountain

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unced Lin