When he came to himself, he had a pleasant feeling of freshness all
about him. It was night, the sky was sparkling with stars, and the
earth was covered with a heavy dew.
The traveller having recovered, mounted his horse, and at the first
streak of dawn he saw a stream dancing in front of him, and stooped
down and drank his fill.
He hardly had courage to open his last orange. Then he remembered that
the night before he had disobeyed the orders of the old man. Perhaps
his terrible thirst was a trick of the cunning witch, and suppose, even
though he opened the orange on the banks of the stream, that he did not
find in it the princess that he sought?
He took his knife and cut it open. Alas! out of it flew a little
canary, just like the others, who cried:
‘I am thirsty; give me something to drink.’
Great was the disappointment of Désiré. However, he was determined not
to let this bird fly away; so he took up some water in the palm of his
hand and held it to its beak.
Scarcely had the canary drunk when she became a beautiful girl, tall
and straight as a poplar tree, with black eyes and a golden skin.
Désiré had never seen anyone half so lovely, and he stood gazing at her
in delight.
On her side she seemed quite bewildered, but she looked about her with
happy eyes, and was not at all afraid of her deliverer.
He asked her name. She answered that she was called the Princess Zizi;
she was about sixteen years old, and for ten years of that time the
witch had kept her shut up in an orange, in the shape of a canary.
‘Well, then, my charming Zizi,’ said the young Prince, who was longing
to marry her, ‘let us ride away quickly so as to escape from the wicked
witch.’
But Zizi wished to know where he meant to take her.
‘To my father’s castle,’ he said.
He mounted his horse and took her in front of him, and, holding her
carefully in his arms, they began their journey.