Part 14

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?”

“I am a sorcerer,” said he, “and I dwell in an island far out in the Great Sea. I am known there as the One-Armed Sorcerer. I came here, with the genie whom I command by virtue of a ring of his hair, in order to prove my skill against the witch. I undertook to release our good friend the Highwayman and his ten fair daughters, but I am bound to say that I managed it badly; so badly that the witch got the genie’s hair away from me, and by means of that hair turned him into a dog and shut me up inside the wasp’s nest. And all because I didn’t know the rule, that you mustn’t speak before you’re spoken to.”

“A pretty good rule,” said I, “but if everybody observed it, who would ever talk?”

“Well, anyway,” said the One-Armed Sorcerer, “here I have ten buttons, and here I have ten threads from the genie’s head. I propose to make you a doublet, sir; a magic doublet; and for the cloth, the wasp’s nest will be the very thing. It will be a doublet worth having; and to you, sir, who have so nobly preserved us all, I will present it on--er--ahem!--on your wedding day.”

“Hurrah!” piped up the elderly Highwayman, and the lady on my arm blushed.

“Oh, isn’t that sweet of him?” cried her nine sisters. “Isn’t it just too sweet for anything? It’s really the sweetest thing, now isn’t it? Too perfectly sweet for words, it is, really!”

The One-Armed Sorcerer, stepping over to the wasp’s nest, pulled it down from the tree without breaking it, and slung it on his back.

“Come with me!” I cried. “You shall all return with me to my father’s castle. Will you consent to that?”

“Well,” said the elderly Highwayman,--

“Though anxious to accommodate, I fear it’s growing rather late, I seldom stay out after eight--”

“Oh, father!” cried his daughters, nine of them, together, “it would be perfectly jolly!”

“It would suit me to perfection,” said the One-Armed Sorcerer.

“Oh, _won’t_ it be jolly? It _will_ be jolly, won’t it? Wouldn’t it be perfectly jolly?” cried the nine young damsels, clapping their hands.

“Will you come home with me?” I whispered to the fairest of the ten, who had said nothing.

“If you wish it,” she whispered, blushing again.

“Oh, aren’t they just the dearest things?” cried her nine sisters. “It’s love at first sight--oh, the dear things! Aren’t they just simply too dear for anything? They _are_ perfectly dear, now, aren’t they? Really now, aren’t they just too perfectly _dear_?”

_The Prince Leads His Beloved Home_

Well, the long and the short of it is, we reached my father’s castle late that night, under a starry sky. The attendants whom I had left in the forest had returned without me, and the castle was a-twitter with anxiety. But when I led my fair lady into the great hall and presented her to my father, the King, and her nine sisters and the elderly Highwayman and the One-Armed Sorcerer stood bowing behind us, there was joy, I can tell you, and the rafters rang again.

My father, after a long look at the beautiful damsel at my side, and then at me, gave a long, slow whistle, without making a sound, and stooped and kissed her on both cheeks, nudging me with his elbow at the same time.

A cheer went up again, and my father took me aside and whispered in my ear.

“You rascal,” said he, “I never thought you had it in you to-- Really! You don’t say so! You astonish me! A Highwayman’s daughter! Well, well, think of that! Very original of you, my son; I’m sure I never would have thought of such a thing at your age. She’s got a fine eye, my boy; there’s a look in it I’ve seen in your mother’s eye; a will of her own, you can’t fool me about that look,--yes, yes, very beautiful,--but a will of her own, remember I told you. A Highwayman’s daughter! That’s good. Highly original. Well, well, it might have been the Hangman’s daughter--but remember what I told you about that look in the eye, I’ve seen it before,--your mother used to--but she’s certainly beautiful all the same--when does the wedding come off?”

_The Magic Doublet Is Presented at the Wedding_

We were married on the morning of the third day. Such feasting, such dancing, such merriment,--and gifts innumerable; but the best gift of all was a doublet, made with his left hand by the One-Armed Sorcerer from the skin of the witch’s wasp’s nest, fastened by the witch’s ten buttons sewed on with the genie’s hair; a doublet to preserve the wearer from all harm. And this, as the wedding dinner was nearing its end, the One-Armed Sorcerer, rising in his place, presented to me with a pretty speech, for which I thanked him.

“Sir,” said my father, addressing the One-Armed Sorcerer, “I invite you to remain with me at my court, to instruct my son in the mystery of handling a wife. Nobody but a sorcerer should undertake such a job. Will you try it?”

“Alas, your majesty,” said the One-Armed Sorcerer, “it is far beyond my powers. And besides, I must return to my island home, on pressing business.”

“Very well, then,” said my father. He took my bride’s hand in his and patted it, while she looked down in confusion. “My dear,” said he to her, “you must persuade your sisters to remain here with us. And as for your father, I design to appoint him Lord Treasurer of my kingdom. I think a Highwayman ought to be a good man to take charge of my money. Will you persuade him to accept that office?”

“Oh!” cried the nine sisters, without giving my bride a chance to speak. “That _would_ be jolly! Oh, _wouldn’t_ it be jolly? It _will_ be just too perfectly jolly for anything, won’t it? But really, though, _won’t_ it be jolly? Just too simply, perfectly, adorably _jolly_!”

“Your majesty,” said my father-in-law the Highwayman, rising up on his elderly legs,--

“Although I am not confident that I’m entirely competent, I thank you for the compliment, I thank you most sincerely; I fear I am not very quick in matters of arithmetic, but often when the answers stick I get them,--very nearly; And if at first I don’t succeed I try again, although indeed I cannot say I always heed Each wretched little fraction; And anyway you must agree if one but knows his Rule of Three there’s hardly any need to be Acquainted with subtraction.

“I do not wish to seem to boast, of all things I detest it most, and yet I think I’d fill the post Not very ill, not very: From early youth I did betray, I’ve often heard my mother say, a really rather taking way In matters monetary; A simple little rule or two I always try to keep in view, to do what I am told to do, And always speak politely, And never make a saucy joke behind the backs of other folk, a rule which I have seldom broke, If I remember rightly.

“My motto is a simple one, that happiness depends upon the consciousness of duty done (Unless it’s too unpleasant), I value virtue more than wit, and as for riches, I admit I do not value them a bit (At least, not just at present), I think, however, I should state, that though I don’t mind working late, I like to be at home by eight, When supper’s on the table; And thus, in words of simple art, I thank you, Sir, with all my heart, and promise I will do my part (At least, as far as able).”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.