caress, he found words to express his feelings.
"He is Canetto, the Prince of the Forest Mannikins," replied Belinda;
"and having been a near relative of my dear mother's, he is very well
disposed towards me."
"What then am I to do?" asked the boy. "For, shut up, as I am, in this
horrid dungeon, it seems to me that nobody can do anything for me,
unless indeed they would change me into a mouse, that I might pass out
by the same hole as that by which you entered."
"That," said Belinda, "might doubtless be a very good plan, but it is
not the one which I am directed to follow. You must know that our
friend, all-powerful in the forest, has elsewhere bounds and limits to
his power, the reasons and degree of which you and I cannot understand.
It is for this cause that he does not come here at once and deliver you
from the dungeon; but, though he does not attempt this, he will give
you such help as shall assuredly procure your deliverance in due time.
He bade me tell you that you will certainly be taken out of this place
to-morrow, when the king will advise with his council what to do with
you. Be firm--though this I need scarcely tell you: if they give you
your choice of death, or if they offer you one wish before you die,
choose to be killed in the forest, under the shadow of the trees near
my foster-mother's cottage, and if they grant that wish the rest will
be easy. If (as is of course possible) they offer you no choice at all
in the matter, you must pronounce the magic word which alone can
prevent them harming you, but with which you are invulnerable."
"And what may that word be?" anxiously inquired Zac.
"It is not an easy one," replied the princess, "but as I may only say
it twice, listen very carefully whilst I do so, that you may remember
it well, since the least mistake might be attended with disastrous
consequences. The word is--'Ballykaluphmenonabababandleby."
"_What?_" exclaimed Zac in a horrified voice; upon which the princess
repeated the word again very slowly; but, though it doubtless appears
very easy to the reader, it completely puzzled poor Zac. He shook his
head mournfully--
"If it depends upon _that_," said he, "the game is up--I should never
be able to pronounce that word, if I waited till apples grow on peach
trees."
"I am very sorry," answered the princess in a sorrowful voice, "but you
see I can only tell you what Canetto told _me_, and we must hope for
the best. But now it is time for me to be off, for if I am not back at
the palace soon, my absence will be discovered, and I may be exposed to
unpleasant questions." So saying, she once more embraced the boy, and
then, approaching the hole, muttered some words which the mannikin king
had, no doubt, told her, and in another moment became once more a
mouse, and vanished from his sight.
The interview had somewhat encouraged Zac, although he had fearful
misgivings about the magic word, which, strange to say, appeared to him
both long and difficult. However, he resolved to make the best of it;
and having finished his loaf of bread and pitcher of water, lay down on
some straw which he found in the corner of his room, and fell fast
asleep. In the morning he was awakened by a surly gaoler, who brought
him a fresh loaf and some more water, of which he partook with all the
relish of a good appetite. Not long after this, he heard the noise of
persons descending the steps which led to his dungeon, and presently
the door was thrown open, and a guard appeared, whose orders were to
conduct the prisoner once more before the king.
Fridolin was sitting in his chair of state, surrounded by his
courtiers; and near him stood the two elder princesses, with downcast
eyes and cheeks suffused with modest blushes.
When the boy was brought in, the king frowned angrily upon him, and
shook his royal fist in a threatening manner.
"Well, you young villain!" he cried; "have you passed the night
bewailing your sins, and making ready for the death which certainly
awaits you?"
"My lord king," answered the boy, with uplifted head and undaunted eye,
"I have done no wrong against you or yours, and I deserve no death at
your hands."
"What?" cried the king in a rage. "Didst thou not admit thy crime
yesterday? Art thou not guilty of the charge brought against thee by
our daughters?"
"Sire," replied the boy, "I said yesterday, and I say again, that I
will not deny any statement made by these noble ladies."
"This is nonsense," said the king; "this is mere quibbling--again he
admits his guilt. What shall we do with him? I say death!"
The courtiers all immediately said death too, as they would with equal
unanimity have said anything else if their sovereign had happened to
say it instead.
"Well, then," rejoined the king, "by what death shall he die? What say
you, Lord Pompous?"
"Boil him," promptly replied the lord chamberlain, who was quite taken
aback at being thus suddenly addressed, and who was at the moment
thinking of a turkey which he had ordered for dinner, and with which he
confused the prisoner at the moment.
"Pompous, you are a fool!" shouted the king.
"As your majesty pleases," responded the old man, with a low obeisance;
and Fridolin went on to ask other opinions, which were all given with a
guarded reservation, that they were subject to his majesty thinking the
same, and if not, were no opinions at all.
"I think," said Fridolin presently, "that the pit of adders is the best
place for him."
"Just so, sire."
"Exactly what we thought."
"The very thing," were the muttered exclamations which immediately
passed round.
At this moment, Amabilia, rushed forward and threw herself at her
father's feet.
"Oh, no! dear father," she cried in piteous tones; "_not_ such a
dreadful fate as that, poor boy. Pray be more merciful, for _my_ sake."
Fridolin raised her affectionately from the ground.
"Well, well," he said, "have it your own way, my queenly girl; he shall
_not_ be thrown into the adder-pit if you have the slightest objection.
Gentlemen," he continued, turning to his council, "what say you to the
honey torture, and giving the wasps and bees and flies a treat?"
"Very good, your Majesty;" "Just the proper punishment for his crime,"
and similar observations, again proceeded from the crowd of sycophants.
But at this instant Concaterina jumped up and performed precisely the
same feat as that of her sister. Throwing herself upon her knees, she
clasped those of her father, and begged him not to subject poor Zac to
such a dreadful fate.
"All right," said the king, to whom nothing was so disagreeable as to
see his daughters cry, which Concaterina was beginning to do, and that
copiously. "He shall not die thus, if you don't wish it, my beauty; but
what in the name of all that is wonderful do you want me to do with the
fellow, if I am not to execute him according to the regular punishments
of the country?"
Now both the princesses had begun to be sorry for Zac; for on calmer
reflection they had come to the conclusion that it was rather hard that
he should die so young, and die, too, for keeping his faith which he
had plighted to a lady. True, he was a horrid fool for not preferring
one of them; but then fidelity was a virtue, and a rare one, and he
punished himself by preferring a plain--not to say ugly--wife to a
beauty. They would have been quite content to have given him a little
more taste of dungeon life, and then let him off, and all this talk
about killing him did not at all chime in with their ideas. Still, they
had raised the storm, and, as other people in a similar position have
often discovered, knew not how to allay it. If they recommended Zac's
pardon, they feared that their father would begin to doubt whether he
had really committed any offence at all. So they hung their heads and
said nothing, whilst Zac turned upon them a grateful look for having
saved him from two such unpleasant alternatives as those which had been
suggested.
After the king had pondered a minute, he struck violently at Lord
Pompous' toe with his sceptre, and gave vent to his usual exclamation
when excited by a sudden idea--"I've hit it!" which, fortunately for
the lord chamberlain, was in this instance untrue.
"The prisoner," continued the king, "shall choose his own death and the
place of his execution. Thus shall we blend mercy with justice, and
maintain our royal reputation for both."
On hearing these gracious words, the courtiers naturally turned
their eyes up to the heavens in admiration of such a display of
elevated feeling; and Lord Pompous looked wiser than ever, though
he instinctively edged a little further off from his august sovereign.
The latter now turned to Zac and demanded of him what death he would
choose to die, and where it should take place; calling upon him, at the
same time, to take notice of the clemency with which he was treated.
Although this did not strike Zac very forcibly, he was exceedingly glad
that matters had fallen out in this way, especially since his
treacherous memory had already completely forgotten the magic word,
which might otherwise have been his only chance of escape. He therefore
lost no time in answering the king's question.
"May it please your majesty," he said, "since my death is resolved
upon, I should like to be shot in the breast, so that I may stand face
to face with my executioners. For the place, I should like to be taken
down to the forest, where of old I kept my father's pigs, a simple boy
knowing nothing of palaces and princesses, which have brought me to
this. These were the scenes of my happy childhood. There let me end my
short life."
When the boy had finished speaking, Amabilia and Concaterina both burst
into tears, and would have interceded once more with their royal
parent, but the stern frown which he wore on his countenance restrained
them from so doing.
Fridolin directed that preparations should be made for the execution
within two hours of that time, and that all his court should be
summoned to it. It was to take place in a large open space upon the
edge of the forest, not far from the shepherd's cottage; and, in
consequence of the magnitude of the crime, and the exalted position
which the criminal had lately occupied as the affianced husband of one
of the king's daughters, the executioners were to be composed of
members of the nobility, all of whom were ordered to draw lots by which
it should be decided who should undertake this duty. Some little delay
was caused by the name of Lord Pompous being first drawn, who was known
to entertain a rooted aversion to fire-arms. This being properly
represented to the king, and also the extreme probability that the lord
chamberlain would in his confusion certainly shoot the wrong man, his
majesty was graciously pleased to allow the name to be set aside, and
twelve others selected. This done, and all the other arrangements
completed, the royal party set forth at the proper time, and came to
the spot which had been selected for the execution.
The two princesses who had been the cause of all this were by this time
plunged into the deepest distress, for they had never really intended
it to go so far, and thought that Zac would probably have been brought
to his knees and his senses before this, and would have been pardoned
on condition of his marrying one of them. They had not taken into
account the necessity of satisfying offended royalty, and that their
father, insulted as he believed himself to have been through them,
could not possibly pass the matter over without taking summary
vengeance on the culprit.
Nobody had thought anything of Belinda; but, to the surprise of many of
the party, she emerged from the door of her foster-mother's cottage,
leaning upon the old woman's arm, and apparently overwhelmed with
grief.
When the prisoner had been brought forward, the king in a loud voice
declared to the people what his crime had been, and what was to be his
punishment.
Then Zac, in a firm, calm tone, spoke to the crowd in these words. "I
have only one thing to answer to what is brought against me. I was
betrothed to the Princess Belinda, and I have been loyal and true to
her ever since my betrothal."
Before any one could prevent her, Belinda here suddenly sprang forward
with an agility of which no one believed her capable, and threw herself
into Zac's arms, exclaiming at the same time--"I believe you, my own
Zac; let us die together."
The crowd began to murmur. The king began to waver. The elder sisters
cried still more bitterly at the sight of such devotion. There was a
moment's hesitation, and a hope that Fridolin might relent from his
cruel purpose; when at that very moment a loud, hissing noise was
heard, and the figure of a little old woman, long past middle age and
without the slightest pretensions to beauty, came driving into the
middle of the crowd in a car drawn by pole-cats, whilst upon and around
her twined numerous snakes and adders, who hissed in such a threatening
manner at the crowd that the latter parted right and left in every
direction, and made way for her to advance within a very short distance
of the spot upon which stood the royal party and the prisoner.
Every eye was at once turned upon the new-comer, who waved her hand in
an imperious manner, and looked round with an eye accustomed to
command. As soon as it was evident she was about to speak, the snakes
and adders left off hissing, and there was a dead silence throughout
the whole body of people present. The old woman's voice was not
melodious--rather the contrary, in fact--but she spoke clearly enough,
and there was not the slightest difficulty in understanding her
meaning.
"I am the fairy Nuisancenika," she said, "and I reign, as many of you
may possibly know, over the Plain country. Having been particularly
busy lately in inventing a new kind of adder whose bite shall be beyond
the power of any antidote, I had not heard of the event which has been
appointed for to-day. As soon as I _did_ hear, I determined to come and
witness a righteous act performed by my old friend, King Fridolin.
"It is now some years ago since I avenged him upon his abominable wife,
whom I always detested, and who fortunately gave me power over her by
driving over my best viper in my own country. My vengeance, however,
was not satisfied by her death. Although I had no power over her elder
daughters, I was enabled to endow the last child with certain defects
and deformities which it is pleasant to me to find have been rather
increased than lessened by time. But if this girl gets a good and
loving husband, these things will cease to trouble her, and I shall be
robbed of one half my revenge. The low-born person she has chosen for
her husband would be beneath my notice but that she has fixed her
affections upon him. That is enough for me. He must die; and, when
Fridolin considers that this fellow has insulted his elder and
beautiful daughters, I cannot doubt that he will be of my opinion, and
direct that the sentence be carried out without further delay."
She ceased; and a dead silence prevailed for a few seconds.
Then Fridolin turned sharply to Pompous. "Lord chamberlain, what had I
better do?"
"What your majesty deems best under the circumstances," responded the
high functionary thus addressed.
"Pompous, you are a fool," retorted the king, angrily.
"If your majesty please to say so," replied the courtier, with a low
bow, and once more the sovereign had to think for himself. "There is
much force, madam, in what you advance upon this subject," he remarked
to the fairy.
"If there had not been I should not have taken the trouble to advance
it," answered she. "Do not make fool of yourself by pretending to doubt
as to what you ought to do. Have the young man shot directly, unless
you prefer that I should let my adders loose upon him."
Scarcely were these words out of her mouth, when a clear, flute-like
voice was heard ringing through the assembly. "Who talks of letting
loose adders in _my_ country?"
The people looked up and beheld a little man in a dark green coat,
velveteen waistcoat, and white corduroys, coming out of the forest with
a hunting-whip in his hand, which he leisurely flicked about as he
walked towards the royal party.
But this strange figure was not alone. There trooped after him, three
and three at a time, a whole regiment of little men, all dressed in
green, and apparently belonging to the first comer. They had also
whips, but kept them quiet, whilst they gradually increased in number,
until there were really more than you could have easily counted.
"I say!" repeated the little man in the same voice. "Who talks of
letting loose adders in _my_ country?"
"_Your_ country?" asked Fridolin indignantly. "It is _mine_!"--but he
was checked by the fairy, who put him aside at once, telling him that
his claim was not disputed, but had nothing to do with the question.
"_Your_ country?" she asked of the little man. "I like that! why you
know quite well it is _mine_, and has been for ages."
"I beg your pardon," said the other.
"I beg _yours_," retorted the fairy. "What do you mean by your mannikin
impudence? It is my country, and I mean to have the prince killed, and
settle once for all with this last child of your doll-faced cousin."
"Not so fast, madam," replied the little man, calmly. "It has never
been disputed that my kingdom--that is, the forest territory--includes
all the land within the limits of the forest, and the forest is held by
our greatest fairy lawyers, beyond all doubt, to mean all the land upon
and within which trees grow which are not separated from the bulk of
the forest by any fence. Cast your eyes behind you and you will see
that within the last few years, whilst you have been breeding adders,
and I have been hunting and travelling, King Fridolin has planted
largely, and those chestnut plantations, stretching from the forest on
the extreme right, quite across to the fringe of forest on the left,
have enclosed every yard of ground on which we are standing to-day, and
have rendered it beyond all doubt, part and parcel of the forest
territory, and consequently my country."
The fairy Nuisancenika looked right and left, and her countenance fell
considerably.
"Upon my word," she said, reluctantly, "I believe you are right. I had
overlooked those plantations. I don't know that I have any right to
interfere--I have given my advice--perhaps I had better go--" and she
took her whip up as if to lash her polecats forward.
"Stop!" cried the little man in a clear, strong voice. "There are two
words to that bargain: those who enter the forest territory cannot quit
it without my permission!" So saying, he made a sign to his mannikins,
who immediately formed a ring, several deep, around the fairy and the
whole royal party. Then the little man made a courteous bow to
Fridolin, and proceeded as follows:
"Do not think for a moment, King Fridolin," he said, "that any
usurpation of your rights is intended by my claim, undoubted as it is,
to sovereignty over this forest country. It is yours as kingdoms are
reckoned among mortals, and mine is a species of power which will never
clash with your authority. But you have several things to learn to-day
which it would have been well for you if you had learned before. I am
Canetto, king like yourself, and cousin to your late lamented wife.
Your conduct to her would be perfectly inexcusable if it had not been
that your mind was poisoned and you were utterly deceived by this
vilest of wicked fairies, Nuisancenika."
"'Tis false, villain!" shrieked this person, on finding herself alluded
to in this uncomplimentary manner.
"Hag!" replied Canetto, with a glance of wrath at her, "I should be
sorry to be obliged to proceed at once to extremities, but another such
interruption will expose you to the violent probability of being
whipped to death with your own adders immediately."
The fairy made a gesture of impotent wrath, and gnashed her teeth
savagely while the mannikin thus continued:
"The letters, king, which you believed to have been written by Queen
Rosetta, were all forged by this wretch, and written upon paper which
she had stolen from my poor cousin. She it was, moreover, who poisoned
the queen by viper-broth, and caused Belinda to be deformed and
afflicted as you see her. Fortunately, she was powerless to deprave her
mind, or debase her intellect, and you are happy in the possession of
such a daughter. But this wrinkled old sinner was not content with this
mischief. She it is who has been endeavouring to sow dissension in your
family, first, by putting it into the heads of both your elder
daughters to try and take away their sister's promised husband, and
next, by hardening your heart and preventing your showing mercy when
all your children would desire you to do so. But for this she has a
reason beyond her hatred of Rosetta, which has lasted even after her
death. Did you hear her mention the word 'prince' just now in speaking
of Zac? Well, Zac _is_ a prince!"
Here all three of the princesses started, and the two elder screamed
aloud.
"Yes!" continued Canetto, "that which I tell you is quite true,
surprising though it be. Zac's father is a powerful monarch, the king
of the country of the Red Camellias, which lies beyond my forest.
Having a spite against the king, this vile sorceress stole the boy at
an early age, and left him at a spot where he was found and taken home
by Farmer Dickson, who will verify all that I say. By my magic art I
knew this, but as I could do little or nothing beyond my forest, I
thought it best to keep quiet. Now, however, you know the secret of
Zac's gentle manners and general good behaviour, which, whenever you
observe in a boy, you may be perfectly sure that he is either the son
of a king, or of somebody else. The continuous and cruel hatred of
Nuisancenika has carried her to such a pitch, that she has come here
to-day to gratify her vengeance, and feast her murderous old eyes upon
the death of this poor boy, and the sufferings of your youngest
daughter. Her first punishment, therefore, shall be to witness
something precisely the reverse."
Then turning to Zac he touched his fetters with the hunting-whip which
he held in his hand, when they immediately fell off. He next raised the
whip and laid the lash lightly across Belinda's shoulders, at the same
time pronouncing the words--"Marlika, Marlika, humphty cambia," which
all the world knows to be Mannikin expressions of vast power. In this
instance their effect was both instantaneous and marvellous. Belinda's
hump fell off, formed itself into a round ball like a cannon ball;
bounded up, hit the wicked Fairy a tremendous blow in the chest which
knocked her backwards for a moment, and then utterly disappeared. But
this was not nearly all. Every defect in the young princess's form and
features vanished as if by magic, and she stood before the king, tall,
upright, straight as an arrow, and blushing in all the pride of
conscious beauty. At this moment, I am glad to say that Amabilia and
Concaterina, instead of showing any jealous feeling at a change which
really made their younger sister more charming than themselves, gave
vent to loud exclamations of joy, and rushed to congratulate and
embrace her. The latter ceremony had already been performed by Zac, and
all the royal family began to shed tears of happiness together.
But Fridolin had buried his face in his hands, and when he lifted up
his head, the marks of deep sorrow were set upon his features. "Oh, my
Rosetta!" he cried, in bitter anguish. "My lost and loved Rosetta! my
only love! my noble queen!" and as he spoke he swung his right arm
violently round in the extremity of his grief, catching Lord Pompous
full upon the nose with his fist, and causing it to bleed profusely.
"Do not grieve so much," observed Canetto with a smile; "look behind
you and see what is to be seen."
The king turned and perceived a lady of great beauty and stately mien
slowly advancing from the shepherd's cottage.
"'Tis she! 'Tis she!" he shrieked at the top of his voice, hit Lord
Pompous a tremendous blow on the third button of his waistcoat, which
doubled him up in no time, and with another cry of "Rosetta!" rushed
into the arms of his long lost wife.