"The king! the king!"
"Ay, true enough, I am here," replied his majesty, "but my favourite
horse is not. Speak, answer on the instant."
While the affrighted wretches, calling one to another, rubbed their
heavy eyes, the king was examining the stalls once more, and,
stumbling over his master of the horse, turned and gave him some
hearty cuffs about the ears. But the master only turned upon the other
side, and grumbled--
"Let me alone, you rascal, my royal master's horse is not for the like
of you."
"Rascal!" exclaimed the king, "do you know who it is?" and he was just
about to call his attendants, when he heard hasty footsteps, and the
conjurer stood before him.
"My liege," he said, "I have just returned from an airing on your
noble horse. He is, indeed, a fine animal, but once or so I was
obliged to give him the switch."
The king felt excessively vexed at the rogue's success, but he was
the more resolved to hit upon something that should bring his fox skin
into jeopardy at last. So he thought, and the next day he addressed
the conjurer thus--
"Thy third trial is now about to take place, and if you are clever
enough to carry it through, you shall not only have your life and
liberty, but a handsome allowance to boot. In the other case you know
your fate. Now listen. This very night I command you to rob my queen
consort of her bridal ring, to steal it from her finger, and let no
one know the thief or the way of thieving."
When night approached, his majesty caused all the doors in the palace
to be fast closed, and a guard to be set at each. He himself, instead
of retiring to rest, took his station, well armed, in an easy chair
close to the queen's couch.
It was a moonlight night, and about two in the morning the king
plainly heard a ladder reared up against the window, and the soft step
of a man mounting it. When the king thought the conjurer must have
reached the top, he called out from the window--
"Let fall."
The next moment the ladder was dashed away, and something fell with a
terrible crash to the ground. The king uttered an exclamation of
alarm, and ran down into the court, telling the queen, who was half
asleep, that he was going to see if the conjurer were dead. But the
rogue had borrowed a dead body from the gallows, and having dressed it
in his own clothes, had placed it on the ladder. Hardly had the king
left the chamber before the conjurer entered it and said to the queen
in the king's voice--
"Yes, he is stone dead, so you may now go quietly to sleep, only hand
me here your ring. It is too costly and precious to trust it in bed
while you sleep."
The queen, imagining it was her royal consort, instantly gave him the
ring, and in a moment the conjurer was off with it on his finger.
Directly afterwards the king came back.
"At last," he said, "I have indeed carried the joke too far. I have
repaid him. He is lying there as dead as a door nail. He will plague
us no more."
"I know that already," replied the queen. "You have told me exactly
the same thing twice over."
"How came you to know anything about it?" inquired his majesty.
"How? From yourself to be sure," replied his consort. "You informed me
that the conjurer was dead, and then you asked me for my ring."
"I ask for the ring!" exclaimed the king. "Then I suppose you must
have given it to him," continued his majesty, in a tone of great
indignation; "and is it even so at last? By all the saints, this is
one of the most confounded, unmanageable knaves in existence. I never
knew anything to equal it."
Then he informed the queen of the whole affair, though before he
arrived at the conclusion of his tale she was fast asleep.
Soon after it was light in the morning the wily conjurer made his
appearance. He bowed to the earth three times before the queen and
presented her with the treasure he had stolen. The king, though
excessively chagrined, could not forbear laughing at the sight.
"Now hear," said he, "thou king of arch rogues. Had I only caught a
sight of you through my fingers as you were coming, you would never
have come off so well. As it is, let what is past be forgiven and
forgotten. Take up your residence at my court, and take care that you
do not carry your jokes too far, for in such a case I may find myself
compelled to withdraw my favour from you if nothing worse ensue."