THE RING-DOVE.
Fairyland can produce nothing so wonderful as the facility with which
sundry mortals can extend their faces. To smile widely is the fashion
with us nowadays, and it is very wonderful indeed to note the various
methods of its accomplishment. If the human face be a mask (and who
shall say it is not?) then what maskers promenade our streets with
their masks set smiling—as one would set a watch or a clock! Bowing and
smirking is the latest humbug, and even the mere soulless puppets, born
of men’s brains, must smack of it, else they are voted untrue to life
and nature.
There was a set smile on the ugly face of Dusk, the dwarf, as he bowed
to Silverhaze and our hero; but the sprite had not been educated in a
mortal school. He lacked polish. Malignity shone in his eyes and in
every corner of his wicked mouth.
“Don’t move, I pray,” he said slowly; “my slaves are entirely at your
service. Why don’t you summon them to do your bidding? Ho, ho, ho!” And
his mocking laugh rang through the vaulted passages like a bugle-call.
Poor Silverhaze began to tremble, and clung to the Nugget for support,
while the youth in his turn tried his utmost to calm her fears.
The dwarf eyed them with a sinister look. “Very charming for my fay,”
he ejaculated, rubbing his bony hands together. “Very loving and
tender, oh, my doves. What tender morsels you’ll make for mince-pies!
My cook, Pancake Parecheese, will be delighted with you. He, he, hi!”
He turned about as he spoke, and clapped his hands together as a
signal. Almost immediately the room became filled with armed monsters.
“Ha!” cried Dusk in mocking sarcasm. “You break into my house, kill my
servants, and rob me of my coveted prize. Slaves, take this man away
and boil him down.”
It was a dreadful order. To cook a man like a leg of mutton or a shin
of beef! Good heavens! it was awful. But the dwarf, powerful as he was,
little dreamed of the amazing influence of the ram’s horn. By its
potent force our hero set the whole army of monsters by the ears, who
fell foul of and slew each other. Not satisfied with this, they set
fire to the mansion, where, amidst the conflagration, those who were
not slain perished in the flames.
At the beginning of the fray our hero seized the dwarf, and
transforming him into a donkey, placed the King’s daughter on his back,
and retraced his steps to Mother Dot’s hut on the cliff. The dame came
out at their approach, and at the sight of her the ass began to bray
loudly.
“Thou wicked sprite!” she cried, shaking her staff over him. “Thou
camest to me in sore need, and I gave thee power. How hast thou used my
gift? Why, to evil. Beast thou art, and a beast thou shalt remain for
evermore.”
The donkey drew back his long ears, and kicked spitefully, for fully
five minutes, at the decree. Meanwhile, Mother Dot took the young
Princess and her companion into the hut, and placed refreshment before
them. It was amusing to see the attention the Nugget bestowed upon the
fair young creature by his side, and to note the tell-tale blushes
which ever and anon suffused her face as their eyes or their hands
chanced to meet. Even the old crone, who wasn’t looking their way,
nodded her ancient head, muttered, and chuckled in a wise way, as if
she had known it all beforehand.
The meal ended, Silverhaze approached the dame and whispered, “Dear
Mother Dot, who is this gallant youth who has delivered me from the
wicked dwarf?”
“Ah, he will tell you soon, my pearl,” she answered with a leer;
“meantime, he’s called the Knight of the Ram’s Horn.”
Presently the Nugget drew near the old woman, and plucking her by the
sleeve, said, “Dame, canst tell what I am to do with this gentle
maiden?”
“Yes, my son. Thou hast conquered the evil Dusk, therefore to thee
shall be the proud service of restoring Princess Silverhaze to her
home.”
“Where is her home, good dame?”
“Thou hast seen it,” answered the old woman. “That rock on the plain is
the palace of King Golden Cloud. This damsel is the King’s only child.”
“Whew!” cried Samson, taking off his hat. “Why, mother, the place is a
wretched ruin.”
“So it is, and there stands the spoiler,” replied the crone, pointing
to the ass. “Dusk the dwarf coveted the Pearl of Golden Cloud for his
wife, and when she denied him, the base wretch stole her from thence,
and to hide the deed, he committed a greater one, as people generally
do who begin to do evil. By the dwarf’s enchantments, the King, Queen,
ladies, nobles, courtiers, and every soul within the palace were
transformed into the likeness of stone images. The guards who attempted
to rescue the King’s daughter were changed into a horde of wild animals
on the spot, while the matchless garden, the wonder and beauty of a
kingdom, became a wide waste.”
“What a wicked monster!” cried our hero indignantly.
“Ah! my son; but thanks to thy strong back and unfaltering courage the
spell is broken, and his power is gone for ever. If thou hadst failed
with the burden I gave thee, then would Silverhaze be still confined
within the crystal globe.”
“I am very glad to have rescued the lady,” he replied; “but, mother, I
could not have accomplished it without your aid. Even now I am at a
loss how to proceed.”
The old dame looked at him, and began to chuckle.
“Marry! art not thou the Knight of the Ram’s Horn? Ha! ha! hi! hi!”
So tickled did she appear at this somewhat ambiguous question that she
laughed till the building trembled to its foundation, and she no sooner
recovered from one guffaw than she went off into another, until it
ended in a severe fit of coughing.
Samson the Nugget was rather surprised at the old lady’s merriment.
There really seemed nothing to laugh at. How was he to find the way to
that subterraneous passage by which he had come? And, moreover,
supposing he found it, how was he to convey the Princess up the steep
sides of the black chasm?
The whole thing had been feasible enough if the ram’s horn had still
remained in his possession, but the relic had mysteriously gone from
him the moment he re-entered the old woman’s hut.
After many futile attempts at choking, Mother Dot recovered
sufficiently to say,—
“Sir Knight, be not troubled concerning the maiden. I will find means
to send ye both to Golden Cloud.”
“But, dame, I repeat the place is a ruin.”
“Tut! To thee it seemeth so,” she answered shortly. “I will undo the
spell cast upon it, and thou shalt see it in all its former
magnificence. The statues shall rouse them from their long sleep and
give ye welcome. I have said it.”
The dame hobbled to a pretty cage, and took therefrom a beautiful
ring-dove which perched tamely on her finger and began to coo. Bending
her mouth towards its beak she whispered a few words, and the dove flew
away and was lost to sight in a moment.
“Come, Sir Knight; come, Princess. You must now set forth on your
journey to Golden Cloud,” continued Mother Dot. “We will all mount upon
the back of the ass, who shall bear us to Moonshine, after which you
will have no difficulty in reaching your destination.”
The miserable donkey gave forth a loud bray of dissent at the undue
weight placed upon him, but a few sound thumps, administered with the
old lady’s crutch, soon quieted him. The dark night had fallen round
them ere they reached the frontier which divides Golden Cloud from
Work-a-Day.
At this point Dame Dot dismounted, and, taking leave of the Princess
and her companion, said,—
“We part here, for I cannot cross this line. Remember me to His Majesty
and the Queen. Farewell!”
The crone vanished, together with the ass, and left the King’s daughter
and her champion standing on the threshold of two worlds—the known and
unknown.
On this borderland they beheld on one side a dim, imperfect light, out
of which came voices filled with groans and sobs. The air trembled with
countless sighs, upborne from millions of aching hearts; but the rush
and the roar, and the hurry-skurry of tumult and bustle swallowed up
the sounds. The other side gleamed soft and clear, with roseate
shadows. There was no cry of pain, no wail of despair there.
“This is our way,” the Princess said, and they left the obscure
reflection behind them and went onward into the light.