The Prince peered cautiously from behind a tree, and the Fairy pointed
out the children to him. Relya saw the little chapel on the island.
Before the chapel sat a little girl, pale as a white rose. She neither
sang nor crooned, but sat still with her hands clasped in her lap and
her eyes raised to heaven.
On the sand beside the chapel played a little boy, baby Primrose, and
round his neck hung a little Gold Cross.
He played on the sand, built castles and pulled them down again with his
tiny hands, and then laughed at his handiwork.
Relya watched, and as he watched he began to think. But the Votaress had
no time to wait while the Prince finished thinking things out, so she
softly prompted Relya.
“I will call to the little girl, noble Prince, and you shall see that
she will not give up the Girdle; then do you draw your burnished sword,
go up and take what is yours, and then come back to me to the Mountain,
and I will guide you back down the Mountain so that my sisters shall not
hurt you.”
As the Fairy said this, she secretly rejoiced, thinking how easily she
would kill Relya and get the Girdle for herself, so long as Relya would
bring it from the Lake. But Relya only listened with half an ear to what
the Votaress was saying, for he was lost in looking at the girl.
The Fairy called to Lavender:
“Little girl, sister, throw me the Girdle, and I will take you and your
brother down the Mountain.”
When Lavender heard this, her face grew yet paler, and she clasped her
little hands yet more tightly. She was so sad that she could scarcely
speak. She would so gladly have left the Mountain; her little heart was
bursting with longing.
But all the same she would not part with her mother’s Girdle.
Tears flowed down Lavender’s face; she wept softly, but through her
tears she answered:
“Go away, Fairy, and do not come back again, because you will not get
the Girdle.”
When Relya saw and heard this, his princely blood, his noble blood, was
roused within him, but to a good purpose.
He was filled with pity for these two poor orphans in the midst of the
grisly Mount Kitesh, defending themselves all alone against monsters and
temptations, death and destruction. “Great Heavens!” thought he, “the
princess trusted in her armed warriors and her strongholds to defend her
lands, and the lands were lost; but these babes are left alone in the
world, they have fallen among Fairies and Dragons, yet neither Fairies
nor Dragons can rob them of what their mother gave them.” All Relya’s
face changed as his heart went out with pity to the children. Thus
changed, he turned towards the Votaress.
The Votaress looked at Relya. Why did he raise his sword? Was it to cut
down those insolent children? No; Relya raised the sword aloft and
threatened the wicked Fairy with it.
“Fairy, avaunt! as if you had never been! If you had not been my guide
across the Mountain, I would strike your fair head from off your
shoulders. I was not born a prince, nor did I forge this mighty sword
that I might roam the world a spoiler of the fatherless!”
The poor Votaress was quite frightened. She started, and then fled to
the hills. And Relya shouted after her:
“Go, Fairy! call your fairies and monsters! Prince Relya does not fear
them!”
When the Fairy had run off to the hills, Relya crossed the furrow and
went towards the children on the island.
How happy was Lavender when she saw a human being coming towards them
and looking at them kindly! She sprang to her feet and stretched out
both her arms, as a captive bird spreads its wings when you open your
hand and let it go free.
Lavender was quite certain that Relya had come up only to bring them
safe back from the Mountain. She ran to Primrose, took him by the hand,
and both crossed over to Relya by the little bridge which they had
fashioned with their own tiny hands across the reeds.