r. He was hiding in a cave very far away from any living person, but
not far away from the wild beasts. One day he had taken the Old Brown
Coat out of the bundle and laid it upon the limb of a tree, that he
might look at it and fancy himself a king wearing it; but a tiger stole
smoothly behind him and, before he was aware, the beast had killed
Kaddel. The Coat lay still upon the bough and was protected by the
leaves. But a great wind came and broke off the bough, sending it into
the river that flowed below; the coat clung to the limb and floated with
it for many days down the river.

Now the river ran for hundreds of miles through the forest without
passing any house, but then it came to a woodman's hut where dwelt,
entirely alone, the woodman and his little daughter Isal. One evening
after the sun was down, Isal was playing on the river bank when she saw
a limb of a tree floating down the river toward her; as it came near,
the current of the stream brought it by the bank, and Isal, reaching out
into the water, took hold of a twig and drew to her the very bough which
had floated for hundred of miles down the river, with the Old Brown Coat
snugly hid among the twigs and leaves. "Here is a coat!" said Isal. "I
wonder where it could have come from!" She took it off the bough, which
drifted away as she let it go, and held up the coat to look at it. "And
what a strange looking coat it is!" she said. "It must be very old; it
is very carefully mended too. Some poor person must have owned it; but
it doesn't belong to anyone I know. I'll see if it fits me." Now Isal
had never heard anything about the Old Brown Coat of the Kingdom of
Percan, and of course knew nothing about the story that any one who wore
it must rule or die. "It certainly fits me very well," said she, "but I
don't think it is very warm; it is soft though, and I will sleep on it
to night." She carried it into the house and showed it to her father,
who turned it round and round but knew no more about it than she. When
night came she laid the coat upon her hard bed so as to make it a little
softer, for they were very poor, and soon went to sleep upon it.

Do you recollect that I told you at the beginning of this story that the
Phoenix made the Old Brown Coat? Yes, the Phoenix made it, but not
the one that was living then; for the Phoenix, you know, lives for
five hundred years; there is only one Phoenix at a time, and when the
old bird has lived his five hundred ye