THE BLACK PARROT
Reading edition
A Tale of the Golden Chersonese
BY HARRY HERVEY
AUTHOR OF "CARAVANS BY NIGHT," ETC.
"... You perceive, then, it is by the grace of Romance that man has been exalted above the other animals...."
James Branch Cabell
F. D. GOODCHILD TORONTO 1923
Copyright, 1923, by The Century Co.
Printed in U. S. A.
TO CHARLES BEDELL HERVEY
Do you remember? I told you of the Khmers, the ancient Brahmans, who, with elephants and war-chariots, with legions of mailed swordsmen and archers, crashed through Manipur and Arakan, to the Lake of Tonle Sap, and there built an empire; built the long cloisters, the tremendous towers and stairways that now mourn beside the drowned forests of Angkor. I said that were you to go there some night when a full moon hangs over the jungle, you would hear the tread of perished armies (fierce, arrogant warriors, drunken with power and conquest) and see the Tevadas come down from the walls and dance about Naga, the Seven-Headed Cobra. And you said, "Put it into a story!" Do you remember?