I stood for a moment looking up and down curiously. The deer was
nowhere to be seen. The road was arched in a charming manner by the
branches of the trees, and at no great distance lost itself in the
shadowy forest. I wondered that I had never heard of this road before,
and after pondering this for a moment I began to cross the road,
looking carefully for the deer’s tracks in the dust. I saw no trace of
him, and I was about to push into the forest on the other side, when
suddenly a voice, a low but clear voice, said distinctly in my ear,
“Stop!”
I looked about me, but I could see no one. There was positively no
living creature near me,--unless I except a wasp which at the moment
was flying about my head, and which I struck away with my hand.
I walked down the road some twenty paces, peering about for the person
who had spoken, and becoming more and more perplexed; and as I was
about to enter the forest the same voice, still low but quite distinct,
spoke again close into my ear: “Stop!”
I stopped in bewilderment. The forest was silent as the sky; no
living creature, not even a bird, could I see anywhere; there was
nothing;--nothing, indeed, except the wasp which was still flying about
my head and which now began to annoy me exceedingly.
I went on again, striking out at the wasp, and in a moment (I assure
you I began to doubt my senses), the same voice spoke again, this time
close into my left ear.
“Stop! Just a moment!” it said. “Look, if you please! On your left
shoulder!”
I craned my neck about, and there was nothing on my left shoulder
except the wasp. The wasp was there, indeed, and I made as if to brush
him off; but the voice said, “Don’t, if you please!” and I stayed my
hand.
You may imagine that I was more astonished than ever. I gazed at the
wasp intently, and as I did so the voice began to murmur, in a kind of
rapid, buzzing drone, into my left ear.
“Mercy on us!” I cried. “It’s the wasp that’s talking!”
It was true, beyond a doubt. “Yes!” said the voice. “Please listen! If
you’d only be so good--I really wish you would!”
_The Prince Listens to a Curious Discourse_
I stood perfectly still in the roadway, and I know that my mouth hung
open as I listened. The wasp buzzed into my ear a kind of rapid,
droning song, so low that I had to strain my attention a little to
catch it all, and these were the words I heard:
“I know it’s rude to speak to you, it’s something I but seldom do,
to speak before I’m spoken to,
Or buttonhole a stranger;
Excuse me if I do not pause to think just now of social laws, I can
not spare the time, because
I’m in the gravest danger;
In gravest danger, yes, it’s true, I’m sure I don’t know what I’ll
do, I’ll positively die if you
Refuse me your assistance;
Come, follow me without delay, I pray you do not say me nay,
it’s life or death,--and anyway
It’s scarcely any distance.
“My lot is sad in the extreme, I really am not what I seem,
I once was held in high esteem
By every friend and neighbor:
A man entirely free of guile, who lived but in his children’s smile,
and kept them all in modest style
By hard and patient labor,
A man of pleasing manners who, whatever other men might do,
spoke seldom unless spoken to,
A practice much commended;
My trade in such a way I plied upon the highway far and wide
(I say it with a modest pride)
I scarcely once offended.
“It used to be my pleasant way (it always made my work seem
play) to take the air from day to day,--
Unless, of course,’twas raining,--
Upon the road to watch and wait from early morn to rather late,
but always coming home by eight
(Such was my early training),
I used to watch and wait, I say, and when a trav’ler came my
way, which happened every other day
Unless too cold or sunny,
I never spoke a word, not I, I merely breathed a patient sigh,
and held my trusty blade on high
And took from him his money.
“’Twas thus I kept my children ten, a decent, worthy citizen,
the happiest of mortal men
My humble sphere adorning,
The father of ten daughters fair who needed tons of clothes to
wear, and that was why I took the air
Upon the road each morning,
But oh, alas for them and me, it’s over now, as you may see,
and you are incontestably
Our only hope remaining;
And all our truly dreadful plight is just because one rainy night
I simply for a moment quite
Forgot my early training.
“’Twas rainy and ’twas after eight, I knew that I was out too
late, but when your trade’s in such a state
You hardly know what cash is,
You cannot stop because you get your feet all muddy, cold and wet,
I knew I should be ill, and yet,--
My children needed sashes.
I shivered with the wet and cold, I counted twenty times all told
I’d meant to have my shoes half-soled
And still they’d not been cobbled,
‘I’ll certainly,’ I thought, ‘be sick,’--and then from out the darkness
thick an ancient woman with a stick
In fearsome silence hobbled.
[Illustration:
“I held my trusty blade on high
And took from him his money”]
“She was an ancient, crooked crone, an ugly thing of skin and
bone, she passed me silent as a stone
(I thought it rather funny),
But I could hear my children cry, ‘Oh, buy us ribbons, father, buy,’
and stopping her, my blade on high,
I shouted, ‘Stand! Your money!’
Ah, that was just where I did make a most unfortunate mistake,
for she with mirth began to shake
(It made my blood run colder),
And up she raised her crooked staff, she gave a most unearthly
laugh, a thing I did not like by half,
And touched me on the shoulder.
“She stood, she looked me through and through, she said not even
‘How d’ye do,’ she merely gave a laugh or two,
And munched her gums together:
A witch, a sorceress of the wood! I nearly fainted where I stood,
I really truly think you could
Have felled me with a feather.
A witch, as sure, as sure could be! You see what she has done to
me! And all because I carelessly
Forgot my early training.
From which you learn this lesson true, that it will never, never
do to speak before you’re spoken to
Or stay out when it’s raining.”
The voice stopped, and the wasp flew off, directly before my nose, as
if leading me away.
_“Why, dear me!” interrupted the Queen. “I believe this wasp was
nothing more nor less than a Highwayman.”_
_“What I don’t understand is,” said the King, “how a Highwayman could
have learned to make up verses.”_
_“In the Forest of Wen, your majesty,” said Solario, “the Highwaymen
always talked in that fashion. It was their regular custom. I am told
that no Highwayman could get his certificate until he had passed an
examination in arithmetic, swordplay, and composition; and of course
composition included verse making.”_
_“Well,” said the King, “I don’t see what that had to do with making a
good Highwayman of him; but then I don’t pretend to understand these
notions about education. As far as I’m concerned, if I had to pass an
examination in arithmetic in order to be a King, I’d simply have to
look about for something else to do. I never could see the sense in
teaching a King arithmetic, and I don’t see the sense in teaching a
Highwayman how to make verses. I know it’s done in some places; it’s
gotten to be quite the thing, I understand that perfectly well; but I
don’t see any sense in it.”_
_“My dear,” said the Queen, “you mustn’t forget that a Highwayman has
to know a great deal more than a King. It’s so very much harder to be a
good Highwayman. But I don’t think I should like to be married to one.”_
_“This one was a widower, evidently,” said the King. “I know I
shouldn’t like to be a widower with ten daughters on my hands. I don’t
see how any human being could keep ten daughters in ribbons and--”_
_“When Dorobel was little,” said the Queen, “I always had the most
terrible time to make her remember that she mustn’t speak until she
was spoken to. I don’t wonder the poor man forgot it, when he was so
worried about sashes for his dear children,--and out so late at night,
and in the rain, too!”_
_“Why don’t you let the man go on with his story?” said the King.
“We’ll_ never _get to bed at this rate. Solario, be kind enough to
proceed.”_
The wasp flew off (said the King of Wen), directly before my nose, as
if leading me away; and I followed him down the road.
We had gone about a mile, when the wasp turned off into the forest. I
hesitated a moment, but I was curious to know what this unfortunate
Highwayman intended, and I pushed on after him into a portion of
the forest which was wilder and gloomier than any I had yet seen.
The branches of the trees hung low, and the ground was thick with
underbrush; I had to part the bushes and branches with my hands in
order to get through.
The wasp flew within a foot of my nose, and I kept on after him thus
for more than half an hour. He seemed to know the way, but for my part
I began to wonder whether I should ever be able to find my way back.
Suddenly he flew off, and I saw him no more.
_The Prince, Alone in the Forest, Hears the Bark of a Dog_
I was at this moment in an uncommonly thick part of the forest. The
trees were perhaps less close, but the underbrush was taller; so tall
that I could not see through. I stopped for a moment, and listened. All
was still. Not a bird twittered among the leaves overhead. I was vexed
that I had allowed myself to be drawn upon such a wild-goose chase, and
I decided that I had better begin to make my way back to the road; and
as I was considering this, I heard the bark of a dog.
It was a single, sharp bark, and it stopped abruptly, as if a hand
had been clapped over the animal’s mouth. I listened again, but it
came no more. “What should a dog be doing here?” I thought; and full
of curiosity I pushed on through the underbrush in the direction of
the sound. In a moment I had broken through the tanglewood, and I was
standing at the edge of a clearing, in the midst of which was a little
house.
It was a very tiny house indeed,--not much more, in fact, than a hut.
Its door was closed, and the window beside the door was barred with
shutters. I listened intently, thinking to hear again the bark of a
dog, but I heard nothing. Evidently the place was deserted.
I crossed the open space before the door, and as I did so I noticed,
clinging to the trunk and lower branches of a tree at the side of the
clearing, what appeared to be a wasp’s nest; but an enormous wasp’s
nest, big enough, in all conscience, to contain a man if need be; a
wasp’s nest greater than I should have thought could exist in the
world. I looked at it curiously, and coming nearer I saw, crawling over
it, a number of wasps. I counted them, and there were eleven.
They arose with one accord and flew in great agitation about my head;
and at the same time I heard a voice from inside the wasp’s nest,--the
voice of a human being, but not the one I had already heard; a voice
much stronger and louder. I put my ear against the wasp’s nest, and
from within came these words:
“Don’t speak before you’re spoken to!”
“Who is it?” I said. “Where are you?”
“Beware the dog!” said the voice again.
“But who--what--?” I began.
_The Prisoner Inside the Wasp’s Nest_
“I can’t get out! I’m imprisoned inside the wasp’s nest! Do as you’re
bid, and don’t speak before you’re spoken to. Beware the dog!”
At this moment I heard the click of a latch, and I turned round in time
to see the door of the hut open.
In the doorway was standing an old woman, and by her side a dog. She
was a hideous old crone, wrinkled and bent, with little, beady eyes
and a hooked nose and no teeth. She stood there munching her gums and
blinking her eyes at me, and I noticed that she wore about her neck a
string of what looked like ivory buttons, ten of them, white and flat.
With her left hand she leaned on a crooked stick, and with her right
hand she held, by a leather thong, the biggest and fiercest-looking dog
I had ever seen in my life. His head came nearly to the old woman’s
shoulder. He was chocolate brown in color, and his skin was entirely
naked of hair, except for a patch of long wiry hair which fringed
his neck. He bared his sharp, white teeth at me and growled. I felt
decidedly uneasy.
The eleven wasps were flying about my head in violent agitation. The
old woman said nothing, but continued to blink at me and munch her
gums. Suddenly the dog barked, and without a word the old woman flung
the thong from her hand. The dog gave a bound toward me and crouched
for a spring, growling and bristling. In another instant I knew that I
would be torn to pieces. I started back and cried out in alarm.
“Call him off!” I shouted. “Stop him! Call him off!”
At these words, a groan came from inside the wasps’ nest. At the same
time one of the eleven wasps, which were flying directly before my
face, dropped to the ground at my feet as if dead. I realized that I
had spoken before being spoken to, and one of the wasps--one of the
Highwayman’s daughters, in fact,--had suffered for my error. But the
worst consequence was now to come.
The old woman shook her stick and danced up and down in hideous glee.
“He’s spoken!” she cried. “Ha! ha! Spoken before he was spoken to!
He’s done for himself now! At him, dog, he’s helpless! Seize him, dog,
destroy him!”
_The Dog Leaps Upon Him to Devour Him_
Before I could turn, the dog was upon me. No man on earth could have
stood up under such an attack. With one leap he was upon my breast,
and bore me to the ground; and as I fell his sharp teeth sank into my
shoulder, and I nearly fainted with pain and terror.
“A hair of the dog that bit you!” It was the voice from within the
wasp’s nest, and it was crying: “A hair of the dog that bit you!”
My senses were slipping away, and I hardly knew what I did; but somehow
or other I put my hand on the beast’s neck, and plucked from it a long
hair; and as I did so the dog bounded away from me and stood cowering
and quivering, as if in fear.
“At him!” screamed the witch--for it was a witch, beyond a doubt; and
she rushed upon the dog and began to beat him violently with her stick.
“At him again!” she screamed, but to my amazement the dog turned upon
her, snarling; and at that moment the voice came again from the wasp’s
nest, and it cried:
“A ring of the hair! Make a ring of the hair for your finger!”
I sat up and quickly wound about my finger, in a ring, the hair which I
had plucked from the dog’s neck. The effect of this was startling. The
witch shrieked, plainly in terror, and sprang away from the dog; and
the brute came to me and cringed before me on the ground and whined;
and behold, all the pain was gone from my shoulder.
“Command him to be himself again!” cried the voice from the wasp’s nest.
“Be yourself again!” I cried, not knowing what I said.
_The Prince, Sitting on the Ground, Looks Up at a Genie_
Instantly, in the flash of an eye, the dog was gone; and in his place
stood, towering above me full seven yards or more, a monstrous creature
in the shape of a man, chocolate brown in color, baldheaded except for
a fringe of long hair at the base of his skull, and bare except for a
cloth twisted about his middle, in which hung a gleaming scimitar. It
was a genie. He was panting with anger or some other strong emotion,
and as he panted jets of fire shot forth from his nostrils. His mighty
chest heaved, and I shrank back in alarm; but he spread out his hands
and bowed low before me. I remembered the ring of hair on my finger,
and grew bolder.
The witch was creeping quietly away, stick in hand, toward the door of
her hut; but as she reached it the genie stooped and caught her in his
hand and held her fast. I sprang to my feet.
“Set free your victims!” I cried to her. “The wasps and the prisoner
inside the nest! Release them! or by the power of the genie’s hair, I
will command him to destroy you!”
She kicked and squirmed and shrieked, but all in vain. There was no
escaping from that terrible grasp. She grew quiet, and began to mutter
to herself. “I will count ten,” I cried, “and if at the tenth--” But
she did not wait for me to count. With one look up at the genie’s face
she waved her crooked stick in the air and began to pour out strange
words, and then, giving a despairing cry, she let the stick fall to
the ground; and as it touched the ground, there came from the wasp’s
nest--I assure you it was an extraordinary sight--I scarcely know how
to tell you, it all happened so quickly--
_The One-Armed Sorcerer Appears from Within the Wasp’s Nest_
Well, the wasp’s nest opened from top to bottom, and inside it was
sitting a young man, who leaped down with a laugh and stood before me,
bowing. I noticed that he had but one arm, the left; his eyes were
blue, and his skin was fair and rosy; and he wore a long blue gown
spangled with silver stars.
_The Highwayman and Nine of His Daughters Appear in Proper Person_
Almost at the same instant there were standing before me nine young
maidens, all of extraordinary beauty; and in their midst an elderly
man with a gray beard and a long thin face, and spindly legs. The
nine maidens were gazing at an object on the ground, and the elderly
man looked down at it also, and they all began to wring their hands
together and moan.
“Oh!” said the elderly man, sniffling,--
“Just see what he has gone and done, he can’t deny it, he’s the
one, he ought to hide his head where none
Could ever look upon it,
He knew, he did, he surely knew, I told him it would never do
to speak before you’re spoken to,
And now he’s gone and done it.”
“I warned him,” said the one-armed young man, “but he was frightened,
and he forgot.”
“Oh, yes,” said the elderly man, wiping his tears away with the back of
his hand,--
“Oh, yes, it’s well enough to say it slipped his mind a bit to-day
and in an absent sort of way
He slew my darling daughter;
But that will hardly, hardly do, I really can’t agree with you, it’s
simply from my point of view
A case of plain manslaughter.”
“Oh, sister! sister!” cried the nine maidens. “Isn’t it terrible? It’s
too terrible! It is terrible, isn’t it?”
“Let me go!” screamed the witch, struggling in the hand of the genie.
_He Sees the Highwayman’s Tenth Daughter_
I pushed into the group around the elderly Highwayman, and there at
his feet I saw what made my heart stand still with grief and remorse.
On the ground was lying a maiden, far lovelier than any of the others;
and she was dead. Her eyes were closed, her face was pale, she did not
breathe; and her hair lay about her like a shower of gold. Alas, that
my carelessness had brought her to this sorrowful end! If she had only
lived! How I should have rejoiced to be her friend, and in the course
of time, perhaps, persuade her to smile upon me--Alas! alas! At that
moment, if she could but have cast one look upon me, I would have laid
at her feet all that I--
I knelt beside her and took her cold hand in mine. I stooped over her,
and in an excess of pity, and of more, far more than pity, I kissed her
softly on the lips.
Oh, wonderful! Her eyelids quivered. A faint flush came into her
cheeks. Her eyes opened, and she looked straight into my own. She
smiled, and it was like the evening sky after rain. I put my arm
beneath her shoulder, and helped her to stand up. She rubbed her eyes
and swayed a little, and I kept my arm about her. We gazed at each
other, smiling.
“Is it--?” said she.
“It is, beloved!” I cried, and folded her, unresisting, to my heart.
“Oh, isn’t it just too perfectly sweet?” cried her nine sisters,
clapping their hands and laughing merrily, all together. “It is sweet,
isn’t it? It’s love at first sight! It’s just the sweetest thing ever!
_Isn’t_ it just too sweet for _anything_, though?”
But while they were still running on in this fashion, and the elderly
Highwayman was cheering faintly and the one-armed young man was
cheering lustily, a loud roar came from the genie, and we saw that the
witch had slipped from his grasp and was even now dashing in at the
door of the hut. She shut it behind her with a bang, and the one-armed
youth pounded against it in vain.
“The stolen hair!” he cried. “The genie’s hair which she stole from me!
I must get it back! Don’t let her get away!”
_The Genie Breathes Fire Upon the Witch’s Hut_
The genie opened his great mouth and roared with anger; then he stooped
down over the hut, and I saw that he was breathing fire upon the roof
from his nostrils; and as the sparks caught in the dry thatch, he began
to walk around the hut, bending and breathing fire upon its roof from
place to place. In a few moments it was ablaze from end to end; the
walls caught; and as I held my fair lady trembling close beside me,
the house arose in flames, crackling and roaring, and showering sparks
upward into the twilight sky.
“Oh!” said my fair one, clinging to my arm. “The poor witch! Save her!
She will be burned to death!” But the genie’s thunderous laugh was her
only answer.
We watched until the fire was out, and there remained only a heap of
smoking ashes; and the witch was gone.
“Oh, the poor thing!” said my beautiful lady.
“Isn’t it terrible?” said her nine sisters, among themselves. “It’s
just too terrible for anything! It _is_ terrible, isn’t it? It’s simply
terrible, it is, isn’t it?”
The one-armed youth stepped up to the ruin and appeared to be looking
among the ashes near what was once the door. He looked for a long time,
and then he suddenly straightened up and cried, “Ah!”
He came toward us, and he was holding up in his hand what seemed to be
a necklace.
“See!” he said, and I saw that it was a string of buttons, of large
flat buttons, eleven of them, threaded on what seemed to be a hair; the
same I had seen about the witch’s neck.
“It is the genie’s hair,” said the young man, “the same that she stole
from me; and it was this hair which gave her power to turn my genie to
a dog and imprison me in the wasp’s nest. Now let me see these buttons;
I must look at them with care.”
He examined each one minutely; and when he had examined them all, he
placed his finger on his lips and smiled knowingly; and while I held
the hair he broke it and slipped off the eleventh button, inviting
me to look at it closely. I looked and saw upon it, near the rim, a
crooked black line, much like the imprint of a tiny, crooked stick.
_The One-Armed Sorcerer Performs Upon a Button_
He threw the button upon the ground, laughing, and took from within
his gown a leather pouch, from which he sprinkled upon the button a
black powder; and then he began to speak, in a loud voice, words which
I could not understand, in the midst of which he picked up the button,
now crusted with black; and still repeating his strange words, he swung
his arm, and with a loud cry flung the button into the branches of the
nearest tree; and there, hanging on to a branch of the tree, trying
desperately to keep from toppling off, was the old witch herself.
Instantly the young man took the threaded buttons from me and slipped
them off the hair; he wound the hair about his finger and cried,--
“Off with her! Off with her to the Forest Kingdom, far from here,
and see that she never comes back again! Off with her, I say, to the
Kingdom of the Great Forest!”
At these words the genie strode over to the witch and--
_“Well, bless my soul,” interposed the King, “what business did he
have to send that witch here, I’d like to know? So_ that’s _how
she came to live in my Forest! A fine piece of work, I must say! A
pretty how-d’ye-do, to send their cast-off witches over here! What
business had he to--”_
_“Never mind, grandfather” said Bojohn, “do let him go on with his
story.”_
_“A fine piece of work!” said the King. “Of all the high-handed,
brazen-faced--”_
_“My dear!” said the Queen._
The genie strode over to the witch in three steps and plucked her down
with one hand. He then tucked her under his arm like a sack of corn,
and stood before the one-armed youth.
“Stoop down!” said the young man.
The genie bowed low, and the young man, to my surprise, reached up and
pulled from the back of his head, at the neck, ten long hairs, one by
one.
“Away!” cried the one-armed youth.
_The Genie Flies Away With the Witch_
The genie stood up, and opening his great mouth in a silent laugh,
stamped upon the earth so that it shook, and leaped straight up. He
rose in the air in a wide curve; and before we could blink again he was
gone like an arrow over the treetops, with the witch under his arm, and
was no more than a speck in the evening sky.
The young man tucked the ten hairs away inside his gown.
“Now,” said he, “_she’s_ gone. And good riddance, too, I should say.”
“Sir,” said I to him, “will you tell us who you are, and what brings
you here?”