here, in his mother’s arms, many months ago,--and yet, the longer I
gazed upon him, the more certainly I knew that it was my own child. I
could not be deceived. I leaned down closer and put my arms under him
and drew him up and folded him to my breast. He was cold and wet, but
beautiful beyond anything I had ever dreamed of him. I stood up, and
held his cheek against my own. It seemed to me I had never known until
this moment how dear he had been to me. I leaned, almost fainting,
against the face of the rock, and rested his fair round body in my arm
for a moment against a smooth shelf in the wall. His little shoulder
lightly touched the rock; and where it touched, a slight depression
seemed to appear, as if the rock had been a cushion. As I looked, the
depression grew deeper and wider; it deepened and widened until it
became a hollow vault, in which I could see nothing but darkness.
Holding the fair boy close to my breast, I stepped into the dark vault,
and walked carefully forward toward the interior of the rock. In a
moment the passage made a turn to the right, and I found myself in a
brightly lighted room with a peaked ceiling, very lofty, whose floor
and walls were all of mother-of-pearl. In sconces on the walls were
hundreds of burning candles, and divans and chairs covered with the
richest silks were ranged beneath them. A door in the opposite wall
stood open, and I entered through this another room of the same kind,
with peaked ceiling, candles, mother-of-pearl, and all. As I stood in
this room I heard the tinkling of a musical instrument and the singing
of a voice. A door stood open opposite me as before, and through
this I entered a third room, precisely like the others, and stopped
in amazement. There, on a divan against the wall, under a blaze of
candles, sat my wife.
_The Laughing Nymph in the Three-Spired Rock_
She was singing gayly and accompanying her song upon a lute. When
she saw me she laughed merrily and bade me sit down beside her. I
remained standing where I was, doubting whether I had lost my senses,
and hugging the beautiful child to my breast. There was no mistake.
It was my wife indeed. I forgot for the moment the strangeness of the
encounter, and went to her and held out the child.
“See!” I cried. “Have done with laughing! Your child! He is drowned! I
have brought him to you! See!”
She looked at me with such merriment in her face as I had never seen
there before. She laughed again and again. I thought she would never
have done laughing. I was petrified with horror.
“Stop!” I cried. “I must make you understand me! It is your child! Do
you understand? Can you look at him and laugh? For shame, for shame!”
She calmed her laughter somewhat.
“Why, what is there in that,” she said, “to make me weep? If you only
knew how ridiculous you look! Oh, dear!” And she went off into a peal
of laughter gayer than before.
“Take him!” I said. “Look down at that little face, and smile again if
you dare!” And I laid him in her lap.
She took him up carelessly and placed him out of her way on the divan.
“Really,” she said, “you mustn’t expect to disturb me with these
things. I was singing a lovely new song when you came in. Listen!” And
she took the lute in her hands and began to sing a stave of her song.
I felt a wave of anger rise within me. I rushed upon her blindly and
tore the lute from her hands and dashed it on the floor. I seized her
shoulders and shook her violently; and the more violently I shook her
the more she laughed. I bethought me of the pin which lay in my pocket,
and at the same time there flashed into my mind what the sorcerer had
said about the Laughing Nymph; I had quite forgotten them both. I
snatched the pin forth from my pocket with my left hand, and closing my
eyes plunged it deep into the left arm of the Laughing Nymph.
She did not scream with pain, but her laughter instantly ceased. She
looked at me with surprise, as if she were now seeing me for the first
time. An expression of reproachful sorrow came over her face; tears
started into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks; and suddenly she
buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. She arose, and threw
herself on her knees beside the child and called to him wildly, sobbing
as if her heart would break.
I looked on for a moment with my brain in a whirl. A strong impulse of
love and pity moved me to put my arm around her and comfort her; but I
restrained myself, and in that moment I saw what it all meant; I left
the Laughing Nymph still weeping beside the child, and fled.
_The Second Black Hair Is Gone_
Outside, on the beach, under the stars, I collected my disordered wits.
I went to the little cabin in my boat, and gazed at myself in the
mirror which hung upon its wall. My eyes were unnaturally large and
hollow; my cheeks were pale; and the black hair which had been on the
right side of my head was gone.
I gathered together such provisions as I could carry, and seeing that
the boat was well secured, I departed upon my third and last adventure.
Many days I traveled. The sorcerer had given me my course with much
particularity, and there was no question of losing my way. My thoughts
were sad company, and yet I felt a kind of elation. I began to look
back on myself with horror, and to remember the sweetness of my
Princess with admiration and love.
One morning I ascended a long wooded hill and stood upon its top. Below
me, at no great distance, lay a river, curved at this point outward
like a crescent. On its farther side stretched a field some two miles
deep, grown high with grass and flowers, and bounded at its rear by a
high cliff whose walls at either end met the river, enclosing the field
so that its shape, between them and the river, was roughly that of a
half-moon. It was, without a doubt, the pasture of Korbi, beside the
river Tarn. The time for my last adventure had arrived.
I descended rapidly to the river, first leaving my pack in a safe
place, and waded across the stream; it came to my shoulders, but I had
no difficulty in reaching the other side. I pressed forward through the
tall grass to the foot of the cliff. I walked along its base until I
found above me on its face, somewhat higher than my reach, a circle of
white stones; and by this I knew that it was at this point that I must
climb.
The ascent was excessively difficult. I mounted, with great pain, to
a point so high that I no longer dared look below; I fixed my eyes on
each crevice and cranny as they appeared above me, and tried to think
of nothing but my next step upward. I was nearing the top. I looked up,
and saw directly overhead a great bowlder which projected from the face
of the cliff, evidently at its very summit. This was the bowlder of
which the sorcerer had spoken as the abode of the Great Horned Owl. A
dozen more painful steps brought me to the under side of the bowlder. I
clung to the cliff with both hands, and without a sound crept along its
face until I was out from under the bowlder on its left side, and then
climbed noiselessly upward until I stood beside the bowlder so as to
look across its top. There I saw, at my right, the object of my search.
_The Great Horned Owl Stands Ready for the Loop of Thread_
The Great Horned Owl was standing motionless, his wide eyes staring
across the valley of the Tarn. I was thankful that in that bright light
of the sun he was blind. He did not turn his head in my direction, and
he was evidently unaware of my presence. His feathers, as I could see,
were flakes or scales of some shining metal. He looked harmless enough,
and I felt myself full of confidence.
The hand which was nearest him was my right. Holding on to the cliff
with my left, I took from my pocket, with my right, the thread which
the sorcerer had given me, and cleared the loop so that I could drop it
over the creature’s head without tangling. I leaned across the bowlder
toward him, keeping very quiet, and brought my right hand with the loop
so close to him that I could have touched him. With that hand I held
the loop above his head and began to lower it. It came down closer and
closer; it reached the top of his head; I held my breath; my eyes were
fixed on his; I lowered the loop another inch or two, until it came
to his curved beak, without touching him; and I was about to drop it
over his neck,--when suddenly he flapped his wings and fluttered his
feathers all together; and all the little metal plates on his body
striking one another gave off a rattling discharge of sharp reports, so
violent that I thought the cliff was being blown to pieces. I jumped
with fright, and scarcely refrained from uttering a cry; but I held my
tongue, and dropped the loop around his neck.
Instantly the metal feathers were still and the noise ceased, and the
owl turned his head slowly toward me and stared straight into my face;
and as he gazed at me, all at once it came to me that I had dropped
the noose with my right hand instead of my left. I was aghast at my
mistake. I tugged at the thread frantically, but the owl did not
budge. I began to grow dizzy. My arm tingled and grew numb. Everything
turned black before my eyes. I could not remember where I was. I
swayed and lost my balance; I felt myself falling; I clutched wildly
for support, but touched nothing; I felt myself falling through space,
falling, falling, as a person falls in a dream, for hours as it seemed,
sick and dizzy. Only once did I touch anything, and then I felt in my
knee a sharp pain, and was conscious that I was bleeding from a cut;
and then I knew no more.
When I came to myself, I was standing at the foot of the cliff, where I
had commenced my ascent. I looked upward, and wondered that I was alive
after such a fall. As my eye traveled downward and rested on the circle
of white stones above me I noticed in their center a little splotch of
blood, evidently from my knee where it had been cut in my fall; and as
I continued to look, the splotch grew into a blood-red flower, waving
on a long stem. I felt a strange desire to take the flower in my teeth
and tear it.
_Alb Sees in the River the Reflection of a Unicorn_
I wondered whether anything had happened to the hair in the middle of
my head. I went to the river, and looked down at myself in a clear
pool near the bank. I was surprised to see there the reflection of a
small white horse’s head. I turned round, to see the animal which must
have been looking over my shoulder. No animal was there. I could not
understand it. I looked again at the surface of the water; the same
head met my gaze; a small white horse’s head, and in the center of it a
sharp, white horn. I looked behind me again, and again into the river.
I stood in the water, and saw there the full image of the little white
horse. It was myself.
Thus (said the young man, sitting in the half-moon pasture of Korbi, by
the river Tarn), you know my story. I have kept count of the days since
my enchantment, and they now amount to two years; the age of my little
son when he was drowned. You have taken from me the third black hair,
and I shall now fly back to my beloved Princess, cured of the curse
of perpetual happiness, to spend with her the remainder of my days in
blessed light and shadow, peace and storm, laughter and tears.
* * * * *
_“I wonder,” said Bojohn thoughtfully, after a moment’s silence, “who
the old man was who gave him the curse in the first place.”_
_“Did Alb tell you,” said Bodkin, “who the old man was?”_
_“No,” said Solario; “I don’t believe he ever knew. But I happen to
know, myself, because it was revealed to me in the course of the story
which was told me by--”_
_“Tell us! Tell us!” cried the two boys._
_“No,” said Solario, “it is much too late, and I must now, if you will
permit me, bid you good night.”_
[Illustration]
THE THIRD NIGHT
THE SON OF THE TAILOR OF OOGH
_The King was engaged with the Master of the Wardrobe in a game
of chess in the throne room, and the Princess Dorobel (the King’s
daughter) and her husband Prince Bilbo were looking on._
_In the next room the Queen was at dominoes with the Second Lady in
Waiting, and Prince Bojohn (her grandson) and his friend Bodkin came
and stood behind their chairs._
_“Grandmother,” said Bojohn, “wouldn’t you like to hear a story?”_
_“Not now, my dear,” said the Queen, and she put down a double five,
smiling at the Lady in Waiting._
_“Come along, then,” said Bojohn to Bodkin. They went into the throne
room, and stood behind the King’s chair._
_“Grandfather,” said Bojohn, “wouldn’t you like to hear a story?”_
_“You made a fatal mistake in moving your knight,” said The King. “I
will now move my bishop and put you in check. So!”_
_“Grandfather!” said Bojohn. “Wouldn’t you like to--”_
_“Take your time, take your time,” said the King. “If you move out of
check, I’ll have you in three moves. See if I don’t!”_
_“Grandfather!” said Bojohn._
_“Ah!” said the King. “That’s different. Hum. Ha. I didn’t think you’d
do that. Plague take it, now I’ve got to think up something else.”_
_The Princess Dorobel placed her arm around the shoulder of Bojohn her
son. She was radiant in a white evening gown, and she wore pearls in
her hair._
_“Never mind, my dear,” said she,_ “I’d _like to hear a story.”_
_“And father too!” said Bojohn. “Come along, both of you!”_
_The Princess Dorobel put her arm in her husband’s, and hurried him
away after the two boys, who were already going out at the door._
_They followed the boys through dark halls and up a staircase into the
northeast tower, and stopped, all four, before the door of Solario’s
room. Prince Bojohn knocked, and a voice from within bade them enter._
[Illustration: Mortimer the Executioner was being measured by Solario
for a suit]
_Mortimer the Executioner, seven feet tall and vast as a hogshead
around the middle, was standing in his shirt sleeves beside the table,
and before him stood Solario on a chair, measuring him with a tape. On
the table lay a pile of cloth, with shears, chalk, needles, thread, and
wax._
_Solario jumped down from his chair and bowed. He was plainly in high
good humor._
_“Be seated, be seated, I pray you,” he cried, bringing up chairs in a
hurry. “This is a great honor; a very great honor indeed. You see me
in the midst of my-- Pray be seated. Will you excuse me while I note
down the shoulder measurement?” He bent over the table, and jotted down
some figures in a book. “Mortimer,” said he, “you may go now. We will
continue our labors in the morning.”_
_Mortimer, in confusion, hastily put on his coat, which caused a couple
of white mice to jump from his pockets and run up his sleeves._
_“Don’t go,” said the Princess Dorobel. “We are about to ask our good
friend Solario for a story, and I am sure you would like to hear it.”_
_“Yes,” said Prince Bilbo, “we have come to hear another story, if you
will be good enough to--”_
_“The story of Montesango’s Cave!” cried both boys, together._
_“Or the Roving Griffin!” cried Bojohn._
_“Or the Blind Giant!” cried Bodkin._
_“If you will pardon me,” said Solario, “I think that it would please
Prince Bilbo and the Princess better, perhaps, to hear the story told
me by the Black Prince on the memorable night when--”_
_“Don’t forget,” said Bodkin, “we want to hear about the old man with
the shaggy eyebrows, who got the golden chain away from the goldsmith’s
son.”_
_“I will tell you,” said Solario, “about the old man and about the
Black Prince at the same time.”_
_“We know nothing,” said Prince Bilbo, “about any old man with shaggy
eyebrows.”_
_“I’ll tell you, father!” said Bojohn; and he told what he knew. “Now
then!” he said to Solario. “Please go on!”_
_Solario the tailor seated himself cross-legged on his table, and the
others drew up their chairs before him in a row._
_“Has the old man with the shaggy eyebrows,” said Prince Bilbo,
“something to do with the Black Prince?”_
_“Precisely, sir,” said Solario. “If you are ready, I will relate to
you the story which the Black Prince told me on the memorable night
when-- However. Are you ready?”_
_“Dear me!” said the Princess Dorobel. “This is very cozy, indeed.”_
_“Go on!” cried Bojohn; and Solario, picking up his shears and gazing
at them thoughtfully for a moment, began, in the following words,_
THE STORY OF THE BLACK PRINCE
You must know, most excellent Solario (said the Black Prince) that my
father, the King of Wen, called me to him one morning, and taking me
into his private cabinet, spoke to me as follows.
“My son,” said he, “you are aware what anxiety I have suffered,
throughout my reign, regarding my city of Oogh, by reason of its
remoteness from my castle. I have, as you know, been unable to visit it
since my early youth. It is now some four years since I sent to that
city, to govern it in my stead, our friend Urban, so well-beloved among
us for his unfailing courtesy.”
* * * * *
_“Oh!” said Bojohn. “That must be the Courteous Stranger.” Solario
said, “Precisely.”_
“For many months,” continued my father, the King of Wen, “I have had
no word from him, and I fear that some misfortune has befallen him. I
design therefore, my son, to send you to the city of Oogh, to find out
what is wrong, and if necessary to lend him aid. It will be best for
you to enter the city without making yourself known. Your mission may
be dangerous, and I accordingly wish you to wear this doublet, which
will protect you against all harm so long as it remains intact. I know
of no power which can remove it from your person, or detach from it
even a single button; but I warn you to be careful, for any injury to
it will deprive it of all virtue, and the consequences to you in that
case might be serious. Take the doublet from me with your left hand,
and I will tell you how I came into possession of it.”
Thereupon my father with his left hand placed the doublet in my left
hand, and commenced
THE STORY OF THE MAGIC DOUBLET
“When I was a young man,” said my father,--
_“Please excuse me, Solario,” said Prince Bilbo; “don’t you think it
might be better to go on with the main story, without stopping to--”_
_“Really, I think it would,” said the Princess Dorobel._
_“Oh, mother!” said Bojohn._
_“If it is your pleasure,” said Solario, “I will omit the story of the
magic doublet for the present.”_
_“I really think it would be better,” said the Princess Dorobel._
_“Oh, shucks,” said Bojohn to Bodkin, in a whisper._
“This is the doublet,” said my father when he had finished his story,
“which, as I have told you, was made by the One-Armed Sorcerer with
his left hand. Prepare now for your journey, my son, and good fortune
attend you.”
All that day I spent in preparation, and early on the next morning I
set forth for the city of Oogh. My daughter, the Princess Amadore,
implored me to take her with me. She was ever of an ardent and
adventurous spirit, and she would not listen to my objections on the
score of danger. She usually had her way with me, and I knew from the
first that there was no use in resisting her entreaties; and the upshot
of it was that I yielded, though much against my judgment.
_The Prince and His Daughter Set Forth for Oogh_
In due time we made our way to the city of Fadz on the seacoast, where
we took ship for Oogh; and for some two weeks we sailed the Great Sea
with favorable winds. At the end of that time we were blown out of our
course by storms, and took shelter in the Island Kingdom, at a port
called Ventamere, whence we visited the kingdom’s capital city, and
arrived there in time to witness, as the King’s guests, the marriage of
his daughter the Princess Hyla to one Alb, a goldsmith’s son, a youth
of exceedingly cheerful and engaging manners. This ceremony over, we
returned to Ventamere, and there took ship once more for Oogh.
No further accident delayed us, and after a week we sighted that part
of the mainland which my father had described to me. At my direction we
were put ashore, my daughter and myself, at a point where, as I knew, I
should find the road to Oogh.
Leaving orders for the ship to ride at a safe distance from shore
against our return, we turned our faces inland; but before going
further, I darkened my face, neck, and hands with walnut juice,
and dressed myself in patched and threadbare clothing. I put on my
magic doublet, but concealed it beneath a rude blue smock. I tried
to persuade my daughter to darken her face also, but she positively
refused to ruin her complexion, as she expressed it, and I now
regretted bitterly that I had brought her with me. I was able to
persuade her, however, to put on a coarse and tattered gown, but she
did it very unwillingly. I had provided myself with some trinkets of
silver, odds and ends of lace and silk, and children’s toys, and these
I now slung on my back in a pack. Thus, in the character of a peddler
and his daughter, we set forth upon the road to Oogh.
_A Strange Encounter at a Wayside Well_
Late in the afternoon we saw before us the roofs of the city, and
at the end of the road a gate in the city wall. At the same time we
perceived, in a clump of trees, a wayside well, and we were hastening
toward it, being tired and thirsty, when we heard a voice in that
direction, which was exclaiming angrily:
“There! Take that! I hate you, I hate you! Oh, if I could never see you
again!”
Hearing no reply to this outburst, and wondering who it was that could
take such language in silence, we hurried forward, and saw, standing
beside the well, under the trees, a boy and no one else; a boy of some
twelve years of age, dressed in a gorgeous robe of pale yellow silk;
a singularly beautiful boy, with great dark eyes and curly dark hair,
but a face extremely pallid and stained with tears; a face, in fact,
the saddest I had ever seen in a child. He was picking up from the wet
ground beside the well handfuls of mud, and spattering his silk robe
with it; and as we arrived he tore from his head a cap of spotless
white velvet and stamped it into the mud, crying out, “I won’t wear you
any more, I won’t! I hate you!” And then he burst into tears and flung
himself full length on his face in the mud, beating the ground with his
hands and muttering brokenly to himself.
We paused in astonishment, but my daughter, recovering herself quickly,
ran to him and put her hand on his shoulder. He sat up, startled. He
rose to his feet timidly, and gazed at us with big round eyes, trying
to choke back his sobs. He was mud from head to foot, and his gorgeous
robe was ruined.
My daughter coaxed him to tell her what was the matter, but he made no
answer; instead, he pulled off the ruined robe and flung it in the mud,
and standing in his shirt and breeches stamped upon it and burst into
tears again, and cried, “I won’t wear it! I want to be poor! I want to
be like the others! Oh, the wicked Eyebrow! Why can’t he be good like
the others? Oh, if I could only cut off the Eyebrow and make him poor
and good like the others!”
My daughter took his hand and begged him to tell her his trouble, but
all he would say was, “He’s wicked, and I want him to be good like the
others! And to-night he’s going to give the Blind Bowler to Goolk the
Spider, and I can’t stop him, I can’t stop him!” And he broke into a
fresh storm of sobbing.
My daughter shook her head at me pityingly.
“We are very sorry, my lad,” said I, “and I ask you to trust us. We are
going into the city, and perhaps when you know us better you will tell
us all about it. We should like to help you. Will you come with us?”
“What can a peddler do against the Eyebrow?” said the boy,--but he
dried his tears, and allowed my daughter to lead him forth by the hand
into the road.
We could make nothing of the boy’s wild talk, but we went onward
without questioning him further, and drew near to the city in silence.
Beside the city gate, under the wall, a crowd of idle people were
gathered, and from the center of the group we could hear voices
singing together hoarsely. In a few minutes we were in the midst of the
crowd, and saw what it was the idlers were looking at.
_The Three Blind Ballad Singers_
Three blind men were singing a comic ballad in loud voices, and
prancing up and down in time, with such antics that the crowd
roared with delight. Each of the three held in his hand a sheaf of
papers,--ballads, undoubtedly, intended for sale to the onlookers.
Suddenly they stopped, each with a hand at his ear, and looked up at
the sky as if listening.
“Is there a stranger here?” cried one of them.
“A peddler and a maid!” shouted one of the crowd. “All tattered and
torn!”
“With eyebrows?” cried the ballad singer.
“Yes! yes!” said several of the crowd together.