wind was blowing. The King and the bird-boy were to be led
forth at noon. The clock marked a quarter to twelve.

"Dear Rosabella," said the bird-boy sadly, "we have forgotten that
to-day is the day on which the great gray bird comes from the ocean and
circles the castle towers. If thou shouldst see the bird when I am gone,
greet it in my name, as we did when we were happy children."

"The bird may come," said Rosabella amid her sobs.

"No, Rosabella," said the bird-boy, "I shall never see the gray bird
again. And even if it were to come, what could it do to save us from
these cruel people?"

When the clock stood at five minutes to twelve, there was a confused
noise below, and Malefico and the judges who shared with him the guilt
of the unrighteous punishment took their places on a kind of platform
which overlooked the place of execution.

"They will soon be coming to get us," said the King to the bird-boy.

And sure enough, they heard the jangle of the jailer's keys at the foot
of the stair.

Suddenly the sunlight in the room faded swiftly into a strange gray
gloom, and the bird-boy rushed to the window to see if a storm was at
hand. A great shadowy cloud, advancing with inconceivable rapidity,
already filled half the sky, and as the boy gazed into this cloud, he
saw to his astonishment that it was not a cloud at all, but hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of great gray birds, flapping their long wings.
The shadow of the birds fell over the platform on which the cruel
Malefico sat waiting for the King and the bird-boy to be brought forth,
and then ceased moving even as a ship that has come into harbor.

Far ahead of the vast swarm flew one lonely bird, and suddenly this bird
uttered a shrill and piercing cry. Immediately every bird let fall a
great beach-stone which he held in his claws, and for a long minute, the
sky rained stones, round, polished stones that fell like bolts of
thunder. When the storm was over, and the cloud had begun to break into
rifts and speckles of light and flapping gray wings, the wicked Malefico
and his cruel nobles lay buried forever beneath mound upon mound of
stones. The doom which Malefico had intended for another had overtaken
him.

The King and the Queen, Rosabella and the bird-boy, rushed down the
stairs and out into the sunlight. As they did so, the gray bird who had
led the cloud, sank through the air and alighted at their feet. But
scarcely had the bird's claws touched the g