a lover of tales. A weakness! I confess it. Come! We will make a night
of it. Goolk,” said he, rising, “come hither!”
The green spider sped down the web to the floor, and ran up the old
man’s yellow silk robe, and came to a stop on his breast, beside his
beard.
“It is the hour of the evening repast,” continued Babadag, stroking the
spider with his finger, “and I invite you to sit down with me. A guest
who has a tale to tell! It is good fortune, no less! Come, Figli, my
son, we will listen to the excellent Bald-er-Dash while we dine.”
_The Prince Dines with Babadag the Tailor_
He pulled aside a curtain in the wall, and leaving the eight men at
their work, we passed, all three, into an open court, hung about with
lanterns of colored glass, and odorous with flowers. Under an awning
was a small table, set for two. It was now dark, and the lanterns shed
a soft glow on the silver and glass of the table. Servants appeared and
laid a place for myself, and the meal commenced.
“You are wondering, Bald-er-Dash,” said Babadag, “who the eight men
are whom we have just left. They are tailors, known among us as the
Knitters of Eyebrows. They are knitting for me, out of the eyebrows
which my good people have been so kind as to give me, a garment known
as the Cloak of Wills, which will, when finished, complete the mastery
of the fortunate person who wears it. Try a little of this wine, my
good Bald-er-Dash; you will find it excellent.”
I pretended to drink the wine, but I was able, while Babadag’s
attention was fixed on his plate, to spill a good deal of it on the
floor.
“I am anxious to hear your story,” said the old man. “The singers who
sometimes entertain me at my meals are late to-day, and we will not
wait for them. Bald-er-Dash, my good fellow, let me hear your tale.”
At this moment voices were heard from the shadows, and three men came
running toward the table, crying out boisterously.
“Good news!” they were shouting. “We’re going to marry! She’s promised!
She’ll marry the one you choose, tra la! She’ll marry the one you
choose!”
_The Three Blind Ballad Singers Once More_
They began to sing, at the top of their voices. I started in surprise.
It was the three blind ballad singers. “O-o-oh!” they sang:
“She wanted to marry us all, she said,
But that wouldn’t do, no never,
No never, no never, no, no!
From suitors a dozen,
Not counting a cousin
And two or three uncles or so,
She’d freely and frankly, firmly and fairly,
Flatly and finally fled!
For never a one could sing, not one,
Not a line, not a note, not a thing, not one,
And she, she said, if she must be wed,
A singer she’d have, or she’d have none,
For really she’d almost rather be dead
If she couldn’t be uninterruptedly fed
On an endless tonic
Of scales harmonic
In every possible key,
An infinite series, never finished,
Of chords with all the sevenths diminished,
And all the intervals less than minor,--
Surely nothing could be diviner,
Nothing! nothing at all, said she:
And after breakfast a quaver hemi,
And after dinner a quaver demi,
And after supper a quaver semi,
And in between, for ever and ever,
Every possible kind of shake!
The fact of the matter is, you see,
She’d made up her mind, beyond mistake,
To offer her hand to one of we!
But which should it be?
Which one of the three?
And what of the two who would have to go?
What about them? she said; that’s it!
She didn’t approve the idea a bit.
Those other two she could never forget,--
Just think of them out in the cold and wet!
Just think of their terrible, terrible woe!
She wanted to marry, and yet, and yet,
She’d never be happy, no never,
No never, no never, no, no!”
“Silence, fools,” said Babadag, laughing. “We are about to listen to
a tale,--a tale from Bald-er-Dash the peddler. Will you proceed now,
excellent peddler?”
“Willingly,” said I.
At the sound of my voice, the three blind men cried out “Aha!” and
broke into a fresh song:
“The peddler and the peddler’s maid, oh fair as milk was she,
And she promised on her honor she would marry one of three,--”
“Silence, rascals!” said Babadag.
I was becoming, all this while, more and more restless, for I had no
doubt that all this talk of marriage had reference to my own daughter.
I wondered bitterly what mischief she had been up to during my absence.
“These rascals,” said Babadag, still laughing, “sometimes I am minded
to put them to death. I don’t know really why I let them live. Now
then, excellent one, let us hear the tale.”
I bowed, and while the repast proceeded, and the three ballad singers
remained standing behind our chairs, I related to Babadag, as follows,
THE STORY OF NOBBUD BALD-ER-DASH THE PEDDLER
“In the course of my wanderings,” I began, “I arrived one day at a
spring in the wilderness, beside which were encamped a company of--”
_“I think,” said Solario, interrupting himself, “that I cannot
conscientiously repeat this story, because--”_
_“Oh, please!” said Bojohn. “We’d like to hear it.”_
_“No,” said. Solario, “I couldn’t, conscientiously, because there is
not a word of truth in the story, and I do not wish to tell anything
which is not strictly true.”_
During my tale (said the Prince) I pretended now and then to take a
sip of wine, and to grow drowsy, so that toward the end I seemed to
have difficulty in keeping awake. When I had concluded, Babadag laughed
and said, “I thank you, peddler. Never in my life have I heard such a
tissue of--er--amusing facts. Some more wine, peddler.”
I pretended to sip the wine again, and let my head fall forward on my
breast, and roused myself as if with a great effort.
“I am something,” said Babadag, appearing to take no notice of my
drowsiness, “of a teller of tales myself. I will tell you in return a
story, and when I have finished you shall tell me another, if you know
any, as you undoubtedly do.”
Thereupon he commenced a long and detailed story; and I could see that
as he proceeded he was watching me from the corner of his eye. He had
not spun out his tale very far when my eyes closed and my head nodded;
and after an apparent effort to arouse myself I let my head fall
forward on the table and lie there motionless.
Babadag instantly stopped, raised my head gently, and laying it back
against my chair shook me roughly, but with no effect.
“Send in the accursed dogs,” said he in a fierce whisper.
I was aware, in a moment, that the eight tailors were standing around
me.
“The eyebrows!” said Babadag, and the tailors bent over me and began to
pluck at my eyebrows with instruments of some sort.
“Oh, father, father,” said Figli, “please don’t!”
“Be still, my son,” said Babadag.
_The Magic Doublet Protects the Prince Against the Knitters of Eyebrows
and Against Goolk the Spider_
I laughed inwardly, for I was sure that, under the protection of my
doublet, my eyebrows would reappear as fast as they could be plucked
out. And indeed, from the snort of rage given by Babadag, I soon knew
that my eyebrows were safe. I could hear the eight tailors whispering
together, as if in dismay.
“Goolk!” said Babadag, in the same angry whisper, “sting me this false
peddler!”
“No, no, father,” said Figli. “Not that, oh, please!”
I shivered a little, for I confess that the thought of the spider was
horrifying to me. I waited anxiously, not daring to open my eyelids
even a trifle. I assure you it was all I could do to remain still.
There was silence, and in the midst of it I felt a tickling on my left
cheek, and then a kind of pin-prick there, and I knew that the spider
had stung me.
“Back, Goolk!” said Babadag. “Now, false peddler that you are, be
no longer either a prince or a peddler, but a spider,--a black
spider!--and take your place with Goolk in the web! Change!”
I felt no change, and I heard another snort of rage from Babadag. “Some
charm!” he muttered. “Some charm protects him! Let us see what charm
this lying stranger carries upon him.”
I felt that my smock was being lifted from my breast, and I heard a
kind of gasp from Babadag. “The doublet!” he said. “It is plain! Off
with the doublet!” And immediately fingers were at my breast, trying to
unbutton the doublet.
But they could not unbutton it. Not a button would come through its
hole.
“Fetch me a pair of shears, rascals,” said Babadag, and in a moment I
knew that shears were snapping away at my doublet. But it was no use;
the blade would not cut, neither the thread of the buttons nor the
cloth; they held like iron at every point. I heard the shears drop to
the floor.
“The Shears of Sharpness! Bring me the Shears of Sharpness!” said
Babadag. “Nothing else will cut this doublet.”
I heard a chuckle, and the voice of one of the ballad singers said,
“The Shears of Sharpness, brothers!” And there was another chuckle.
“What!” said Babadag. “You laugh, rascals? You dare to laugh?”
“The Shears of Sharpness!” said the voice of one of the ballad singers.
“Where are the Shears of Sharpness, brothers?” And at this there was a
very considerable tittering.
“Ask the fair lady, brother,” said the voice of another of the ballad
singers.
“She knows! The wonderful lady!” said the voice of the third.
“Ineffable scoundrels!” said Babadag. “Have you stolen my Shears?”
“No, no! Only borrowed them! What harm in that?” said the ballad
singers.
“Return them to me at once!” said Babadag.
I could hear the ballad singers chuckling together again. “We would, we
would,” said one of them, “we meant to, but--”
“But what, beast?”
“She has them,” said one of the three.
“The most wonderful of women,” said another.
“She who swore she would marry one of us,” said the third.
_The Prince’s Daughter Has Beguiled the Shears of Sharpness from the
Ballad Singers_
My daughter! My own daughter! She had beguiled the Shears from these
foolish vagabonds! Or had they let her have the Shears for some purpose
of their own--to help their brother, say? I was quite bewildered.
“Oh, that I should let such scoundrels live!” said Babadag, fiercely.
“Where is this woman?”
“But she wouldn’t marry us unless we gave her the Shears,” said one of
the ballad singers. “No harm in that!”
“No harm in that, surely!” said the other two.
“Where is this woman?” said Babadag again.
“We left her,” said one of the others, “by the dry fountain at the
governor’s palace.”
“Accursed,” said Babadag, evidently addressing the eight tailors, “pick
up this peddler and follow me. We must find the Shears. You, imbeciles
that you are, I will deal with you afterward. Goolk, back to your web!”
I could not see what became of Goolk, but I knew that the eight tailors
were lifting me from my chair, and I felt myself being borne away.
“Oh, father!” cried Figli. “You mustn’t! Please let the poor man go, oh
please!”
“My son,” said Babadag, in the voice of tenderness with which he always
addressed his son, “he is my enemy. I must have him in my power.
Accursed doublet!”
_A Light Flickers in the Dark Shop_
In a moment I was aware that we were in the street, and I opened my
eyelids a trifle. The moon was shining. I saw Babadag starting on
before, with the three ballad singers at his back. Behind, the eight
tailors were holding me in a sitting posture between them. I could
see the shop door, without moving my head, and as we started I beheld
Figli, coming from the door, in the act of stowing away something, I
could not see what, in the bosom of his shirt. The shop was dark, but
as Figli closed the door behind him I noticed, flickering from within,
a tiny flame of light which had not been there before. I remarked that
the boy’s face was very pale in the moonlight.
We came, after a long journey through deserted streets, to the little
hill which led up to the governor’s palace. We entered the ruined park,
and crossed it to the mansion. Babadag opened the door, and the company
paused inside, listening. All was silent. I had an impulse to shout,
in order to warn my daughter; but I knew that that would be fatal, and
I continued to lie inert and speechless in the arms of the tailors. I
risked opening my eyes from time to time, and I saw that Babadag was
leading the way from room to room, all dark except for moonlight here
and there upon the floors, and that he came at last, followed by all
the others, into the court of the dry fountain; and there the eight
tailors laid me down on the ground. My heart almost stopped beating,
for fear that my daughter should be there.
“Vile rascals,” said Babadag, “you have deceived me! There is no woman
here.”
“Astonishing!” said one of the ballad singers. “Not here! Who would
have thought it?”
“I doubt that she was ever here,” said Babadag. “Wait!”
I saw him go off down the alley of cypress trees toward the Cobweb
Room, no doubt to assure himself that his prisoner was safe, or else
to seek the woman there. As soon as he was gone, I felt a hand on my
arm, and the voice of Figli whispered in my ear, “Are you awake?” and I
pressed his hand in answer.
_The Prince’s Daughter Is Gone, and the Prince Makes a Dash for Liberty_
The eight tailors were sitting on the rim of the fountain’s basin,
mopping their foreheads and panting, and the blind men were standing
near them. I measured with my eye the distance to the door from which
I had come, and gave a sudden spring toward it which carried me nearly
there; and I was off and away, before the eight tailors realized what
had happened.
I scoured swiftly and silently through the dark rooms in all
directions, listening now and then for sounds of pursuit. But I heard
nothing, and I began to whisper my daughter’s name from time to time.
In a room far distant from the court, to which I presently came, I
found the door at the opposite side closed, which in that house of open
doors struck me as being odd. A broad band of moonlight lay across the
floor, and in the dim light I could see the furnishings of a kitchen.
I approached the opposite door and opened it cautiously, thinking to
go through; but I looked into a cupboard, hung with pots and pans, and
there on the floor of the cupboard was sitting my daughter, calmly
eating a fig.
She looked up at me with a merry laugh, and sprang to her feet.
“There are very good fig trees in the park,” said she. “Will you have
one of these? No? You’ve been gone a long time. I heard some people
going through the house, and I thought I had better wait in here. I’m
going to be married!”
“Come,” said I, “we’ve no time for jesting.”
“But it’s the best joke!” said my daughter. “When I think how I
played on those half-wits! I’ve never had such sport in my life! I
promised to marry one of them, if they’d choose which--do you remember
the three ballad singers?”
[Illustration: “Beauty in tatters!” said Babadag the Tailor]
“And you have the Shears of Sharpness,” said I.
“How do you know that?” said she. “They’re simply mad! And I wouldn’t
promise them anything unless they gave me the Shears. And they did!
And I promised! And now you’ve got to get me out of it. Here are the
Shears. Take them.”
“I suspect, my dear,” said I, taking the Shears from her, “that these
three imbeciles meant that you should have the Shears all the time, and
they’ve been making a bit of a fool of you. But there’s no time for
talking. Hurry!”
I stepped quickly toward the door, and as I reached it it was blocked
by a huge dark figure. It was Babadag.
“Not so fast, peddler,” said he; and then he saw my daughter, who was
standing in the band of moonlight, most fairylike and beautiful. He
brushed past me and stopped before her, gazing at her in astonishment
and admiration.
“Beauty in tatters!” he said. “No wonder that even blind men are
conquered. You make me forget the Shears. Surely there is no woman in
Oogh so beautiful. Will you look on me kindly? I am powerful, and I
offer you a share of my power. It is Babadag who speaks.”
He held out his hand to her, and she shrank away in horror. “No, no!”
she screamed. “Father!”
Babadag turned swiftly, and at that moment I sprang upon him; but the
old man snatched forth a knife, and as I caught and held the arm which
was lifted to strike, a small dark figure darted in from the doorway
and flung something over the old man’s neck from behind.
_Babadag the Tailor Is Conquered by His Little Son_
The knife dropped from Babadag’s hand. He swayed, tottered, collapsed,
and fell full length on the floor, and lay motionless on his back in
the strip of moonlight. The little dark figure knelt beside him. It was
Figli.
“Oh, father! Oh, father!” he cried. “I’m sorry, sorry! I had to do it!
I couldn’t let you kill him! It can’t go on any longer! The eyebrows
must be cut, father! It’s only to make you like the others! We’ll both
be happier, oh, indeed we will! It’s only because I love you, father!”
“I didn’t think you would have done this, Figli, my son,” said the old
man, gently. “You have put me in the power of my enemy. Ah, Figli, my
son, my son!”
“I know it, I know it,” sobbed the boy, “but the lady will give the
Shears to me, and I will cut the eyebrows myself, with my own hand. The
peddler will do you no harm. You’ll be glad, father, afterward, indeed
you will.”
“Ah, my son, my son! I wouldn’t have thought it of you,” said the old
man, still gently.
I knelt beside him, and found around his neck a noose of the slenderest
thread, extremely tough; and the end of this thread the boy was holding
in his hand. I took it from him and looked at him inquiringly.
“Yes,” said the boy, “it was spun by Goolk the Spider, and there is no
will can stand against it, not even my father’s. It’s the thing that
made him first able to pluck out the eyebrows of the people. I stole it
as we left the shop to-night. You won’t do him any harm, will you?”
I stood up, keeping the end of the thread in my hand. A patter of
running feet sounded from the next room, and the eight tailors crowded
in at the doorway. They rushed to their master, and wailed and wrung
their hands. One of them drew a pair of shears, and began to snip
away at the thread, but it was plain that no ordinary blade would cut
it, and the tailor gave it up, and the other seven wailed louder than
before.
“Lift up this knave,” I said, “and follow me.”
The eight tailors obeyed instantly, and our party started back to the
court of the dry fountain. I walked beside the body of Babadag, keeping
close hold of the thread. When we reached the court, the three ballad
singers were sitting calmly on the rim of the basin, singing softly to
themselves. My daughter, ever incorrigible, greeted them with an amused
laugh, and they crowded around her, each trying to elbow the others out
of the way. At my command, the eight tailors laid Babadag down on his
back in the dry basin. I then gave the end of the thread into the hand
of my daughter, and left them.
I ran down the cypress alley to the deserted audience chamber. I looked
through the cobweb at Urban, and by the dim light of the high window
saw him sitting there motionless as stone, in the same attitude as
before.
“I am here!” I cried, but he neither moved nor spoke. I applied the
Shears, and in a moment the cobweb was hanging in shreds, and I was
standing beside my friend. I tried to pull him up, but I could not
budge him. I lifted the golden chain from around his neck, and dropped
it to the floor. Immediately he raised his head, stretched his arms,
looked up at me as if awaking from a dream, and sprang to his feet.
“Prince!” he cried, and threw his arms about me in a transport of joy.
I calmed him, and when he had recovered himself he said, “What of
Babadag?”
“He is in the court at this moment,” said I, “bound fast.”
“Good news indeed!” he cried. “Let us go!”
_The Governor, Being Released, Beholds the Prince’s Daughter_
We sped back to the court, and when Urban beheld my daughter he
scattered the blind men right and left and clasped her hand in his. I
took from her the end of the thread and knelt in the basin beside the
huge body of Babadag, and gazed down into his eyes, glittering up at me
in the moonlight through their tangle of hair. I drew the Shears.
“No, no!” cried the boy. “You must not! Give me the Shears! I must do
it, for you do not love him, and I do! Only the hand of love! Give me
the Shears!”
“No time for talking!” I cried. “This is no child’s play. Work for
a man! And I trust no one but myself! Now for the shearing of the
Eyebrow!”
The boy shrieked, as if in despair, and with a mighty snap of the
Shears I cut in among the hairs of Babadag’s left eyebrow.
_The Shearing of the Eyebrow_
A spout of yellow smoke shot upward from his eyebrow, and whirled and
spread outward in a cloud, thick, sickening, blinding, pierced with
wriggling pencils of light, as if tiny snakes had been set riotously
free. It covered us both, so that he was suddenly hidden from my sight.
I gasped and choked. My eyes smarted with pain. I snapped blindly away
at him through the smoke with my Shears, resolved not to be foiled.
There was a sharp crack, as of the snapping of a whip; the Shears had
cut,--alas, alas!--not the Eyebrow, but the thread around Babadag’s
neck! Instantly the Shears were wrenched from my hand, I did not know
how; and I felt them ripping through my smock, and I knew that some
injury had been done to my doublet. A terrible voice bellowed, “Hither,
accursed dogs, and bind me this peddler!” And the next moment I was
lying on my back, with the thread fastened securely about my neck; and
my strength was suddenly gone, and the smoke began to clear away.
I saw the old man put his arm tenderly about his son, and heard him
say, “It’s all right now, my boy. I am not angry. You have put your
father in great danger, but not from malice; I know it well. Don’t be
grieved; we’ll laugh about it together, hereafter. All’s well again.
Come, Figli, my son. Rascals, follow me!”
He stalked away with his son down the cypress alley, and the eight
tailors lifted me and bore me after, followed by my daughter and my
friend. I looked for the three blind ballad singers, but they were
gone. I was in terrible danger, and I bitterly regretted my haste in
refusing the Shears to the boy.
_The Prince before the Seat of Judgment_
In the circular audience chamber they laid me down upon the floor.
Babadag, grotesque and somber in the darkness, seated himself in the
marble armchair on the daïs; and at the same time I heard, or fancied
I heard, the voices of the ballad singers, afar off somewhere in the
palace, singing away at one of their songs.
“Pluck out the hairs!” said Babadag.
“No, no!” said Figli, lying on the step of the daïs at his father’s
feet.
“Quick, scoundrels!” said Babadag; and the eight tailors, kneeling
around me, plucked out with tiny instruments all the hairs of my
eyebrows, by the roots. Then, at a sign from their master, they stood
me on my feet and removed the spider’s thread from around my neck. My
strength returned, and I found myself able to stand alone.
“Gone is your power, maker of fables!” said Babadag. “The doublet is
worthless. See!” And he held up what appeared to be the thread of a
button. My smock was in strips, and the doublet was exposed to view.
One button was missing. What had become of it? Babadag exhibited only
the thread.
“Dog of a peddler,” said he, “it is your due that I give you to Goolk
the Spider for his web.”
“Spare him! Spare him!” said Figli, in a kind of moan, rocking himself
back and forth on the step of the daïs.
“But Babadag is merciful,” went on the old man, “and loves a tale;
and never have I heard so amusing a tissue of lies as that tale of
Bald-er-Dash the Peddler. For that, and for the pleasure I shall have
in repeating that tale hereafter, I spare you. You are harmless. Go!
and as you have chosen to darken your skin with juices, let it be
darker still. Go! and be you henceforth as black as night. I will lead
you to the palace gate, and speed you, with your daughter and your
friend, on your journey away from Oogh. Return no more, peddler, for
the web awaits you, and Goolk the Spider longs for a brother.”
He stepped down from his seat, and we others followed him in silence.
I was conscious of no will to resist him further. We came to the court
of the dry fountain, and there my daughter looked into my face in the
moonlight. She screamed.
We followed mournfully through the dark rooms, and came out on the
steps before the palace; and there we saw a sight both terrible and
beautiful.
_The Doom of the City of Oogh_
The city was in flames. From every roof, as far as we could see, rose
sheets of fire, and sparks showered upward into a pall of black smoke;
and as we watched, new tongues of flame blazed up from quarters dark
before. The city was doomed.
“Ah!” said Babadag with a groan. “My city, my city!”