through the air. It was as gay in color as the tail of the peacock, and seemed furnished with a thousand eyes; but every eye was the muzzle of a gun-barrel. The King sat in the middle of the ship; then he had only to press a spring, and thousands of balls would fly out, while the guns were found loaded again, just as they had been before. Hundreds of mighty eagles were harnessed to the ship: and so, now that all was ready, it rose in the air, and flew up towards the sun.
The earth soon lay far down below him. At first, with its mountains and its woods, it looked like a ploughed field, where the green blades of grass peep out from among the broken clods of turf; then it was like a smooth map of the world, and soon after this it was hidden in mist and cloud. Higher and higher flew the eagles.
But, behold, God sent a single one from His countless host of angels, and the king shot thousands of balls at him; but the hard balls rebounded like hail from the angel’s shining wings. One drop of blood
