Part 5

Now comes the strangest part of the whole story and the one that is hardest to believe, for these three people proved to be Hansel’s father and mother and sister. They had really been stolen away by trolls, as their friends thought, and had been put into the dungeon of the giants for safe-keeping. The trolls had been overcome by other trolls who were stronger than they and put to death. The giants were not used to remembering things, and they had forgotten all about their prisoners. Luckily, Hansel’s father had some magic food in his pockets, or else they would have starved long before. There they were, alive and well; and now Hansel, the lonely little boy whom nobody wanted, had a father and mother and sister, a powerful friend, and rooms upon rooms filled with gold and silver from floor to ceiling.

The doors of the castle keep were flung wide open. The sun shone in and the sweet, strong wind blew through and through it until every corner was fresh and pure. Little flowers began to grow in the courtyard. They showed their faces timidly at first, but soon there were great companies of them, bright and cheery and happy as ever flowers could be. Vines ran up the walls and peered over into the very keep of the castle. Some even slipped in through the gratings of the dungeons to see what kind of places they were. Night and day the gates stood open, for there were no enemies to be afraid of. Hansel grew into a tall young man, and he ruled the country so kindly and wisely that the people declared there never was in all the wide world so good a sovereign as their own King Hansel the First.

THE STAR PRINCESS

THE STAR PRINCESS

There was great rejoicing at the royal palace. Flags waved from every tower. Bright-colored silken streamers floated from every window. Each maidservant had been given a new gown and each servingman a broad silver piece. Little bells were tinkling joyously. Soft strains of music came from one corner and another. The rejoicing was not only at the palace, but throughout the Island Kingdom. Men and women took a holiday from their work. Children went about the streets singing. When night came, every window was ablaze with light and every hilltop was glowing with a bonfire; for the King and Queen had a little daughter. Her eyes were as blue as the ocean, her skin was as white as its foam, and her hair was as yellow as the gleam of the sunlight on the sand.

By and by there was a magnificent christening feast. Kings and nobles and princes and witches and magicians and fairies were all invited. Every one came and every one gave the beautiful baby Princess his very best wishes.

“The King is a happy man to have a child like that,” said one guest to another as they were leaving the palace.

“True,” replied the other, “but he did not look happy. Did not you notice how troubled his face was and how strangely he acted? When some one pushed the curtains aside for a bit of air, did you see how quickly he ran to the window and drew them together again with his own hands, and looked at the baby as if he was afraid it would disappear at a ray of daylight? I am sure that he is anxious about something. The Queen is not. She is as happy as the day is long.”

“I should think she would be. She has everything in the world that she wants, and not one thing to trouble her.”

When all the guests had gone and the candles had burned low, the King went to the Queen and said:--

“My Queen, I have something very sad to tell you. Can you bear it?”

“I can bear anything with such a child as this,” she replied.

Then the King said:--

“When my father was a young, young man, he was so bewitched by the spells of a mermaid that he was ready to give up his kingdom and follow her into the sea. His councillors begged of him to leave her, the court magicians tried in every way to break her spells, but they could not succeed. While they were waving their wands and saying over their charms, she lay on a rock out in the sea and laughed them to scorn. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Keep him if you can. I’ll have his soul yet in spite of all you can do.’ At last all the priests in the kingdom came together. Each one took a great vase of holy water, and they walked entirely around the island, sprinkling the shore as they went. The wicked mermaid could not cross the ring of holy water. Day after day she lay on the rock by the shore, calling and calling the Prince to come to her; but the priests had done their work so thoroughly that he had no longer any wish to go to the wicked creature. When she found that she had lost him, she shrieked with rage and anger and pronounced seven dreadful curses upon him. Six of them the priests could overthrow, but there was one over which they had no power, because it did not affect the Prince himself, but his first grandchild.”

“And that is our baby!” said the Queen, clasping the little Princess closer in her arms.

“Yes,” replied the King, “and the curse was this: If she once looks upon the ocean before the end of her eighteenth year, sorrow shall come to her and to all who love her.”

The King and the Queen talked together sadly about what they should do to save their little daughter. The kingdom was one large island. The palace was on a high hill in the very middle of the island, and from every room in the palace the ocean could be seen.

“Couldn’t we give up the kingdom and go somewhere to live far, far away from the ocean?” asked the Queen, with tearful eyes.

“No,” replied the King. “There is no heir to the throne save our little daughter; and if I should go away, there would be war. I have no right to bring war upon my people even to save my child.”

All night long they talked and planned, and when morning came, they hoped they had found a way to save the Princess. A band of white silk was bound about the pretty blue eyes, and four of the most trusty women in the kingdom were chosen to be the child’s nurses. These were the orders that the King gave them:--

“Two of you must be with her by night and two by day. She must never be left alone for one moment. The band about her eyes must never be removed except at night, and then it must be replaced before the first ray of light in the morning.” If the Princess passed her eighteenth birthday in safety, each one of them was to have ten thousand pieces of gold.

Year after year went on, and the Princess still wore the bandage over her eyes. If she ventured to lay a finger upon it, she was punished as severely as if she had been the child of a peasant; but in everything else she did exactly as she liked. Whatever she asked for was always given her and whatever she wished to have done was done at once. Some princesses would have become haughty and disagreeable, but this one was always kind-hearted and unselfish.

The King had made no secret of the sad story. Indeed, every one in the kingdom knew it except the Princess herself; and the people loved her so much that they were almost as eager as her parents for her to pass her eighteenth birthday in safety. “They say her eyes are like stars,” whispered the people; and gradually they forgot the many names that had been given her when she was christened and spoke of her only as the Star Princess. Wherever she went, she was guarded not only by two of her nurses, but also by all of her father’s subjects who chanced to be in sight. She had never seen the ocean or the sun or had even a single glimpse of daylight, and yet she was the happiest, merriest little maiden in the world. One reason for this was that she did not know that she was at all different from other people. When little girls were brought to play with her, their eyes were always bandaged like her own, and they played only such games as they could play blindfolded. No one was allowed even to mention the sun or the daylight or the ocean in her presence. “Why do people never uncover their eyes until the candles are lighted for dinner?” she once asked. And the nurses replied, “Because before that time eyes are so ugly that no one can bear to look at them.”

One day she asked suddenly, “What is the strange sound that we hear all the time? It is like murmuring and sighing and sobbing and singing. Sometimes it groans and sometimes it almost laughs. Nurses, what is it?”

“It is your greatest enemy,” the nurses replied.

“It must be a dragon,” thought the Princess, and she asked, “Why doesn’t my father drive it away?”

“He would if he could,” the nurses answered, “but it is stronger than he. It never can come any nearer, however; so all its groaning will not hurt you.”

As time passed and the Star Princess grew older, she asked more and more questions. “She must be amused,” declared the King. He sent out his orders and one morning a great troop of workmen appeared at the palace with spades and pickaxes. They were to dig down, down, into the earth, for there a wonderful ballroom was to be made which the King meant should be the most beautiful one in all the world. The walls were of white marble, and over them from floor to ceiling were most exquisite traceries all made in jewels. There were trees drawn with emeralds and beryl, beds of scarlet poppies made of the clearest and most brilliant rubies; there were roses made of pearls and garnets and topaz stones; there were forget-me-nots of the bluest turquoise; there were violets of amethyst; and all about and among the trees and flowers were birds of sapphires and diamonds. In this room the Star Princess was always safe, for not a ray of sunlight could ever enter it. It was anything but gloomy, however, for when the hundreds of candles were lighted, it was such a blaze of brightness and color that one might almost fancy it was the very home of the rainbows. It was no wonder that people came from near and far to see the marvelous room, for there was not another one like it in all the world. Here entertainments of all sorts were given, for the King was ready to do anything to amuse the Star Princess and keep her from being lonely or unhappy or from asking questions that he did not wish to answer.

At last she came to the end of her eighteenth year. The next day, at precisely four o’clock in the morning, she would be eighteen years old, and then there would be no more danger. The King and Queen were so happy that they hardly knew what to do. There was to be a splendid ball, of course, on the night of her birthday, and they had busied themselves in planning to make it the most brilliant fête that the Island Kingdom had ever seen.

“But I should so like to have her all to ourselves on that day,” the Queen had said wistfully. “Couldn’t we give the ball on the eve of her birthday? She will be with us and with the whole roomful of dancers. Nothing could possibly happen to her then.”

The King was not quite pleased with the idea, but he had finally yielded, and the ball had been arranged to come on the eve of her birthday.

Invitations were sent to the kings and queens and princes and princesses of many and many a kingdom, and every one was accepted. For seven days before the ball, ships whose sails were of cloth of silver and cloth of gold were continually coming up to the royal wharves. All day long the King’s golden chariots were going and coming between the palace and the shore to bring up the guests. There was music and feasting and merriment of all sorts, and on the evening of the seventh day came the ball. After all were assembled, the King led in the Star Princess. She was dressed in a gown of white, of some wonderful material that glowed like opals in a soft, subdued light and flashed like diamonds when the light was stronger. Her golden hair almost touched the floor, and gleamed like sunshine. Around her waist and her neck were rows and rows of pearls, and above her forehead shone one diamond star. She was so lovely that more than one noble prince said to himself, “She is surely a fairy. No mortal maiden was ever so beautiful.”

Among the guests there was one who had not been invited, but who was, nevertheless, the most welcome of all. He was the son of the greatest king in that part of the world, but in his babyhood he had been stolen away by trolls. He had just been rescued and was on his way to take possession of his kingdom. When his ship came near the Island Kingdom, strains of music floated down from the palace, and there at the wharves lay the royal vessels of many and many a sovereign with the royal pennants streaming in the wind.

“What does that mean?” the Prince asked.

“It must be a great ball,” replied his attendants.

“I never went to a ball in my life,” said the Prince; and he added with a grim smile, “We did not have balls in the palace of the trolls.”

“Would your Highness wish to attend this one?” suggested his companions, for they, too, had much curiosity to see what was going on in the Island Kingdom. “Of course your Highness knows that there is no court on this side of the world that would not feel honored by your presence.”

The end of it was that the Prince, too, moored his vessel at the royal wharves and rode up to the palace in the royal chariot, and received a most royal welcome. He was presented to the Star Princess at once, of course, and from that moment he could not keep his eyes from her. He danced with her again and again. He seized every opportunity to talk with her, and she was very willing to listen. He told her about his having been stolen away by trolls. “But now,” he said, “I have a good ship. The sea is calm, the sun is bright, there is a fair wind, and soon I shall be in my own kingdom.”

The Star Princess looked puzzled. “I think I can guess what a ship is,” she said. “It must be a little like a palace; but I don’t know what the sea is or the sun.”

The Prince stared in amazement. “Why, the sun is above us and it gives us warmth and light,” he said; “though I am sure it never shone so bright as your beautiful eyes.”

“I have never seen this strange sun,” the Star Princess said. “Candles give light, but how can there be any light without them?”

“Can she be out of her right mind?” thought the Prince. He said no more about the sun, but began to talk about the beautiful room and the jewels that were flashing and gleaming.

The Star Princess, however, had no idea of dropping the subject. “But what is the sea?” she asked. “You said you came in your ship on the sea. What is the sea?”

When the Prince looked into her clear, calm blue eyes, he could not believe that she was not in her right mind, and he began in a dazed fashion to try to tell her about the sea. “It’s water,” he said, “and it lies all around the island, and ships sail on it.”

“Does it murmur and sing and sigh and moan and laugh?” asked the Star Princess eagerly.

“Why, yes, I suppose it does,” replied the Prince, a little doubtfully.

“Then it must be the dragon,” declared the Star Princess. “Surely you have seen the dragon. My nurses say that it lies around the island, but that it will never hurt me. Is the sea a dragon?”

“Yes--no--the sea is just the sea,” returned the puzzled young Prince. “I can’t explain it exactly, but if you should look out of your window, you would see it, I am sure. It must be in view from every window in the palace. Look out to-morrow morning at sunrise. The sea is beautiful. It is dark and blue, it is like your own glorious eyes. I am so eager to see them in the daylight.”

“Is daylight before dinner?” the Star Princess asked. “People’s eyes are very ugly before dinner, you know; and that is why they always wear bandages over them till the table is spread and the candles are lighted.” Then the Star Princess was called away to meet some other one of the great folk who had come to the ball, and she saw no more of the Prince.

All night long and until three o’clock in the morning the dancing and feasting and merriment went on. Soon after three the Star Princess left the room, and her going was the signal for the breaking-up of the ball. The Prince lingered, and when he made his farewell to the King and the Queen, he asked if he might speak with them on a most important matter. Of course they said yes, for of course they guessed what it was. Then he told them that the Star Princess had won his heart, and he begged of them to give her to him to be his bride. “I know well that I am not worthy of her,” he said humbly, “but I will do everything in my power to make her happy. At her slightest wish I will give my wealth and my life as freely as you would pour out this glass of water,” and he caught up a glass of water that stood on the banquet table and emptied it.

The King and the Queen were glad and they were sorry. They liked the bearing and manner of the young Prince, and they knew that he was the sovereign of the richest kingdom in that part of the world. They were glad to have their daughter become his queen, but it did seem hard that they should not have her to themselves for a while after the time had come when they could enjoy her without having to guard her and watch her so carefully. At last the King said:--

“If it is the wish of our daughter, we will give her to you for your bride, but you must first leave her with us for a year and a day that we may accustom ourselves to the thought of losing her.”

Of course the Prince could only agree to so moderate a condition as this. Then they told him the story of the mermaid’s curse, and that on her first day of freedom no one but her father and her mother were to see her; and he went away to wait impatiently until her birthday should have passed.

Now when the Star Princess left the ballroom and went to her own room, two of the nurses went with her as usual. She had little to say, for her thoughts were all on the young Prince and his words to her. “The sun--the sea,” she said to herself; “what can they mean?” Then she remembered that he had said, “Look out of your window at sunrise and you will see it.” Just what “sunrise” meant, she did not know; but whatever it might be, she meant to look out of the window just once before the nurses put back the band over her eyes. She said to one of them:--

“Nurse, I am so thirsty. Will you get me some water from the north side of the well that is on the north side of the palace.”

For a moment the nurse hesitated. Then she said to herself, “The servants are not up yet, and it would be a pity to call one just for this. To-day is her eighteenth birthday, and nothing can harm her now,” so one nurse started to go down the stairs. The other nurse was putting away the opal-like gown and the diamond star and the ropes of pearls. She stepped into another room for a moment, and the Star Princess quickly pulled the curtains apart and took her first look at the sunrise and the sea. She gazed and gazed at them. It was all so beautiful that she could not turn away, and when the nurse came back, there she stood.

“O my Princess,” the nurse exclaimed, “what have you done, what have you done!” Just then the bell on the castle rang, “One--two--three--four!” It was four o’clock in the morning, and the Star Princess was full eighteen years of age. Then the nurse thought, “Ten thousand broad pieces of gold is a great deal to lose. It was only a moment before the time, and surely no harm is done. Perhaps it will never be known.” She concluded to say nothing about the matter, and to the Star Princess she said, “I thought you must have hurt yourself, and I was frightened. Now go to your bed and rest awhile, for to-day you are to be happier than ever before.”

The Star Princess was so used to obeying her nurses that she went meekly to bed and even allowed them to put the band over her eyes as usual; but she was puzzled and confused. In that one long look she had found that no dragon, but a thing more beautiful than anything she had ever seen before even in her dreams lay around the Island Kingdom. What could it mean? Why had she never been allowed to see it? What was that glorious light that came up from the blue and was a thousand times brighter than the candles? Over and over she said to herself, “Sun--sea--ship,” but she could not solve the mystery. She lay as if asleep until the time came to go to her father and her mother. Then she heard the whole story of the wicked mermaid and the seventh curse. “Now you are free,” they said joyfully. She took a hand of each parent and roamed over the palace from garret to cellar, gazing from window after window upon the glorious ocean and the deep blue sky. They went out of doors, and she saw the trees, the flowers, and the birds. She watched the rippling of the waves on the shore. Every hour was more delightful than those before it. At last came the glory of the sunset, and she exclaimed, “Oh, this is even more beautiful than the sunrise!”

“But what do you know of the sunrise?” her father asked gravely, and she told him of her one look from the window. Both her parents were troubled, but the Star Princess was so happy that they could not bear to alarm her. Then, too, they said to themselves, “It was only a moment before the clock struck, and surely no harm can come of it.”

So the happy day went on. When evening was fully come, the mother sat with her arm about her daughter and the father told her very gently about the love of the Prince and his wish to make her his queen. “To-morrow you will see him,” said the King, “and if you are willing to be his wife, he will come for you in a year and a day.”

It was easy to see from the face of the Star Princess that the Prince would be welcome when he came. “We will talk more of this in the morning,” said the King, as he kissed his daughter good-night.

The Star Princess went to her own rooms, and after her maids had left her, she was alone for the first time in her life. She drew aside the curtains and stood gazing upon the ocean in the moonlight. She listened to its music. At first it seemed to murmur peacefully to itself. Then she fancied that it sobbed and moaned. Then she heard clearly a sweet voice that called, “Come to me, come, maiden, come to me!” It was a richer, more exquisite melody than she had ever heard before; and as she listened, she found herself answering, “Yes, I will come, I will come.” She went softly down the stairs and out of the door. Every one else in the palace was asleep, and no one hindered her. She slipped down the hillside in the shadows and went nearer and nearer to the shore. The voice still called. Sometimes it was low and gentle, sometimes it was loud and strong; but whether low or loud, it drew the Star Princess toward it as if it were a magic cord. She followed it along the shore until she found herself on a steep cliff that towered far above the sea. The waters beat upon the rocks at its base, the breakers boomed and thundered; but out of all the wild uproar still came that enchanting voice, calling, “Come to me, come to me, come, come!” Straight to the very edge of the cliff went the Star Princess. For a moment she thought of her father and her mother, of the Prince who was coming in the morning to tell her of his love, and she drew back; but the voice called with a bewitching sweetness and charm, “Come, Star Princess, come.” She held out her arms and answered, “Yes, I come,” and sprang from the edge of the cliff.

A triumphant howl rang out above all the roaring of the waters:--

“I have you now, grandchild of a faithless prince, and you shall pay the forfeit of his falseness. You did not see the ocean for eighteen years, but you shall see it now.” And the cruel mermaid, for she it was who had bewitched the Star Princess and drawn her from her home, laughed so savagely and unpityingly that the heart of the maiden almost ceased to beat.

She was alone and in the hands of the wicked mermaid. “Oh, my father, my mother!” she cried. “My Prince, my Prince, save me, save me!” But the mermaid clutched her roughly and dragged her to the palace of her son, the merking who ruled the waters for leagues around.