If you interrogate them, they will confess their
crime. The two brothers and the sister whom you see before you are
your own children, whom they exposed, and who were saved by the
intendant of your gardens, who adopted and brought them up as his own
children."
"Bird," cried the emperor, "I believe the truth which you discover to
me. The inclination which drew me to them told me plainly they must be
my own kin. Come then, my sons, come, my daughter, let me embrace you,
and give you the first marks of a father's love and tenderness."
The emperor then rose, and after having embraced the two princes and
the princess, and mingled his tears with theirs, said, "It is not
enough, my children. You must embrace each other, not as the children
of the intendant of my gardens, to whom I have been so much obliged
for preserving your lives, but as my own children, of the royal blood
of the monarchs of Persia, whose glory, I am persuaded, you will
maintain."
After the two princes and the princess had embraced mutually with new
satisfaction, the emperor sat down again with them, and finished his
meal in haste; and when he had done, said, "My children, you see in me
your father; to-morrow I will bring the queen your mother. Therefore
prepare to receive her."
The emperor afterward mounted his horse, and returned with expedition
to his capital. The first thing he did, as soon as he had alighted and
entered his palace, was to command the grand vizier to seize the
queen's two sisters.
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