Part 2

They set sail in a ship of which the sides were plated with beaten gold. The sails were of pink satin, and the ropes golden threads plaited together. The young king and queen sat upon cushions of velvet on the deck, and talked of their happy future, when suddenly the sky was darkened as by a cloud, and, riding upon a vulture, the cannibal brother came after them. He had been hunting, and a wandering breeze carried to him the story of his sister's escape. Although he had never before heard he possessed a sister, the first whisper of such a thing was sufficient to rouse in him the dreadful cannibal instinct to drink her blood. From where the king and queen sat they could distinctly hear him smacking his lips with joy at the prospect of his horrible meal. Queen Eglantine, fearing she knew not what, shuddered from head to foot, and closing her eyes cast herself upon the king's breast for protection.

The king, bidding her be calm, sprinkled the deck of the ship with one of the fairy's powders, which he carried in a little crystal box. At the moment the huge foul bird of prey hovered above them and gave a fierce swoop downward, the ship and all its contents vanished utterly from sight, while the vulture with his rider plunged into the sea.

The cannibal prince was a good swimmer, and although his vulture was immediately drowned, managed to keep up, until he found a dolphin and got astride its back.

"Now, carry me in pursuit of yonder ship, and mind you swim fast and well," he exclaimed.

"Master, I obey," said the dolphin, who recognized in him a magician. "But, look for yourself--blue sky above, blue water below, and not a sail upon the sea."

The prince looked, and in truth there was no ship to be seen; so, ordering the dolphin to convey him to the nearest landing-place, he soon reached the shores of a beautiful country, where flags were flying, and all the inhabitants were dressed in holiday clothes. Over the wharf was an arch of most lovely flowers, and five hundred little girls were strewing the roads with orange blossoms.

"What is taking place?" asked the cannibal brother of the people around the wharf.

"Where have _you_ been, pray?" said they scornfully, "not to know that our king brings home his bride to-day!"

Then the ship came in sight and the rejoicings began. The cannibal brother had no sooner laid eyes upon his sister than a new longing to drink her blood came over him; and he set about plotting how he could get hold of her, no easy matter, since the palace was guarded night and day by twenty white bull-dogs of the fiercest sort, besides the usual soldiers and attendants. So he took service with a butcher near the town, and made a bag full of little meat-balls, each one containing a drop of deadly poison. One day his master sent him to the palace to carry Queen Eglantine's sweetbreads and mutton-chops. "Now," thought the brother, "I shall get inside;" but he was mistaken, for the sweetbreads and mutton-chops were taken from him at the gate, and passed on through twenty different hands till they reached the cook. As no outsider whatever was allowed to penetrate the inner palace walls, behind which the new queen lived surrounded by every luxury, the cannibal brother had to wait many days for an opportunity to get a sight of her. Meantime his appetite was gaining terribly, and he went to the blacksmith and had all his teeth framed in iron, the better to enjoy his horrid meal.

At last King Charming was summoned to meet a neighboring monarch about a right of way for his armies across a certain peninsula; and, with many injunctions to the queen not to admit any stranger during his absence, he reluctantly set out. No sooner was he out of sight than the pretended butcher's boy hastened to assume his own princely clothing, and, ringing boldly at the castle gate, told the servants to announce to the queen that her brother had arrived, bearing messages from her father and mother. He sent in a golden locket containing likenesses of both the king and queen, his parents, which convinced Queen Eglantine that his tale was true. So, joyfully, she ran forth to meet him, and would have cast herself upon his neck, but that the trained bull-dogs rushed between, growling most horribly.

"Come here, pretty fellow, nice fellow," said the cannibal brother, coaxingly; but the dogs only opened their jaws wider than before and growled defiance.

"Give them these little dainties, sister," said the wily prince, producing his poisoned meat-balls. "They are some that I always carry for my own pets."

The innocent queen called the dogs one after another to her side, and fed them with the fatal balls, which they ate, licking her white hand gratefully. At once, as the poison began to work, they all lay down in a row, and became as quiet as they had been before ferocious. The queen led her brother into an inner room, and bade him sit upon her silken couch. The prince laughed to himself, for now, thought he, the hour has come for my coveted meal. But he was seized with the notion to go into another room in order to file his teeth, which were becoming rather dull.

"Will you not play for me upon the piano, sister?" he asked lovingly.

The amiable queen, who never waited to be asked twice, sat down to play, while her brother hid within a closet and began to file his teeth. Up jumped the queen's cat, in great excitement, and sat on her mistress' lap.

"Mistress dear," said the affectionate creature, "fly, fly, as fast as your feet will carry you. Your brother is at this moment getting ready to make a meal of you, and as he is a magician no one in the castle is strong enough to defend you from him. In the stable you will find the king's gray steed. Jump upon his back, and be off, while I play the piano in your stead."

The terrified queen took to her royal heels, weeping as she stumbled over the dead bodies of her faithful dogs, and the clever cat sat playing beautifully so many runs and trills that the prince, admiring his sister's brilliant execution, made no haste to leave his task until it was finished to his entire satisfaction.

And now, mounted upon the good gray steed, away flew Queen Eglantine in search of her beloved spouse. Pretty soon she heard footsteps, and there, swifter than any horse, swifter than wind, on flew the cannibal brother after her.

"What shall I do, dear steed?" said the alarmed queen.

"Drop your cloak into the road," said the gray horse, who was the cat's own cousin.

The queen obeyed, and the cloak became a broad lake, across which the cannibal brother took a long time to swim. The gray horse got a good start, but presently the prince came nearly up with him.

"What shall I do now, dear steed?" said the queen, almost ready to fall fainting from his back.

"Drop the veil from your head," said the horse.

This was done, and the veil became a thick fog, causing the cannibal brother to lose his way and stumble dreadfully. But he got out of it at last, and came nearly up with them.

"What shall I do next, dear steed?" said the queen, trembling in every limb.

"Take your scissors and cut a long lock from your hair, and throw that behind you."

The queen lifted the scissors that hung at her girdle, and in a moment, snip! they went into her beautiful golden hair. The hair became a jungle of tall reeds, and through it the cannibal brother had work indeed to travel. While he was puffing and blowing and struggling in the reeds, oh, joy! the queen saw her king riding swiftly to meet her.

Just as the cannibal brother, by a desperate effort of magic strength had freed himself from the jungle, and emerged in swift pursuit, he had the mortification of seeing the queen rush into her husband's arms. His dreadful hunger was now increased until it drove him to desperation. With a roar of baffled rage he darted toward the royal couple, swearing that both of them should be his victims; and this no doubt would have been the case--since the monster was endowed with the strength of fifty men--but that the king, bidding his queen have no fear, quickly sprinkled them both, and their steeds, with a pinch of the fairy fern-seed. Immediately they disappeared from sight, and the cannibal brother, coming with full force upon the spot where they had been, beheld only empty space. This disappointment, combined with his now really appalling appetite, made the miserable wretch fall in a fit upon the ground.

The king would have killed him where he lay, but the queen pleaded for her brother's life, so the attendants bore him, insensible, back to the palace. There, the queen's clever cat advised that he should be left to her to deal with. She shut herself up with the patient in a tower bedroom, and during sixty days and nights not a morsel of food passed the sufferer's lips, except the cat's magic castor-oil--a cupful every ten minutes--each tasting more nauseous than the one before! In the morning he was lifted from bed, and put into an ice-cold bath, and then whipped soundly until his circulation was restored. At the end of the second month the cat stopped his bath, whipping, and medicines, offering him instead a handful of parched peas and a dry crust. This diet seemed to him so delicious that never again could he be tempted to vary it. Until he reached a green and virtuous old age this prince was never known to look upon so much as a rare beefsteak without shuddering! His father, mother, sister, and brother-in-law united their tears of joy at this happy reform, and who should the clever cat turn out to be, but aunty, who had taken this means of watching over her favorite Eglantine! The gray steed was aunty's first cousin upon the mother's side; but when peace was restored he preferred to go back to his own country to live, although the grateful King Charming offered him every inducement to remain, in the way of marble stalls and silver mangers, rose-water to quench his thirst, and golden oats to eat. Aunty, too, retired to her own distant castle, and the reformed cannibal lived quiet and happy until the time came to reign in his good father's stead.

As for Eglantine and King Charming, they never again found use for the fern-seed powder. Even the faults of one were invisible to the other.

Nothing occurred to disturb the serenity of their entire reign but a suit for breach-of-promise of marriage, brought against the king's former tutor by the queen's former governess, Madame Véloutine; and this was settled speedily by the tutor announcing that, rather than make any fuss about the matter, he would marry the old lady and be done with it, although he really could not imagine what there had been in his past conduct to put such an idea into her venerable head. So at last Véloutine got a husband, and nobody could be surprised at anything after that.

DAME MARTHA'S STEP-DAUGHTER; OR, THE GRANDMOTHER OF THE GNOMES.

Dame Martha lived at the foot of a high mountain. Her cottage was large enough to give shelter only to herself and two young girls, one of them her own child and the other the child of Dame Martha's late husband, who, about six months before this story opens, slipped down a fissure in the rocks and had nevermore been seen. Dame Martha did not bear a very good character in the neighborhood, as she was known to be violent in temper and dishonest in her dealings. While her husband lived, she had quarrelled with him from morning till night, and after he disappeared, people used to hint that Dame Martha knew better than any one else how the poor man came to his sudden death. But nothing was ever proved upon her, and as the dame's cottage stood in a desolate valley, overshadowed by a frowning cliff on which grew a single lightning-blasted pine-tree, children shunned the lonely spot, and few grown people found anything to attract them in that direction. Margaret, the dame's own daughter, was a handsome haughty lass of about nineteen, so spoiled and self-willed that she bid fair to rival her mother in temper, in the course of time. Hilda, the step-daughter, was a fair and gentle little creature, sixteen years of age, who bore with patient cheerfulness all the unhappiness of her lot. Sometimes, for days together, she would be left alone in the house, while Dame Martha and Margaret dressed themselves up in all their finery, and went off to fairs and merrymakings in the neighboring town. Melancholy were the hours spent in a solitude unbroken save by the rush of the waterfall leaping from cliff to cliff, or the hootings of owls after nightfall, and the unceasing wail of the wind through the forest. But Hilda was at least spared the sound of Margaret's taunting voice and laugh, and the cruel scolding tongue of her step-mother. These two wicked women were heartily tired of Hilda, and cast about in their minds how they could get rid of her, and take possession of a little bag of gold pieces coming to her from her father. Then, thought they, the old house could be shut up and left to the rats and bats, while they might set out on their travels and enjoy life.

One day, when Hilda was bleaching the linen on a patch of grass near the brook, her step-mother called out, "Hilda, the red cow has strayed away, and I hear her bell over by the old stone quarry. Be quick, and you may head her off."

Hilda secured her linen, and with nimble steps, ran up the steep mountain side. She did not fancy the idea of going by the old stone quarry, for there it had been, six months before, that her dear father was last seen in life. Near that spot his hat and shepherd-staff had been found. But Hilda was accustomed to obey without remonstrance, and away she ran, climbing as lightly as a mountain goat. She too, could hear the tinkle of the little bell far up among the bushes, and guided by the sound, she drew near the dreaded scene of her greatest sorrow. A thick screen of fir bushes lay between her and the red cow's place of refuge. Interwoven with evergreens, grew masses of alpine-rose, whose tough branches became entangled in Hilda's feet, and hid the path from sight. At last, she found herself in a dense thicket, not knowing how to emerge. As she paused for a moment to look about her, the red cow's bell tinkled again--a strange uncertain tinkle this--immediately behind the bushes at her left.

"There you are, good-for-nothing!" cried Hilda, struggling bravely forward through the undergrowth in the direction indicated by the bell. She heard a low mocking laugh. Surely that laugh could come only from her step sister! "Margaret!" she called. No answer, and poor Hilda, uttering a wild shriek for help, plunged headlong down a hidden opening in the ground, into a fathomless abyss, where no foot of man might follow her.

Wicked Margaret stood on the brink of this treacherous pit-fall, known only to her mother and herself, and laughed, holding in her hand the little red cow's bell, with which she had lured Hilda to her doom.

"Rest there!" the wretched girl said, kneeling down to peer into the darkness of the rocky pit. "At any rate, you have found a burial-place for your bones, alongside of your father, who was never heard to groan after my mother and I pushed him over the brink here, last autumn! And now, I will go home, and tell the old woman that we are rid of all our burdens. Ha! ha! Won't we spend the father's gold, and revel! This very night must we steal away, and seek our fortune in a distant country."

Hilda fell, unharmed, upon a hillock of soft green moss, so far, so far beneath the ledge whence Margaret had pushed her, that the opening above looked no bigger than a star. The poor girl was overcome by her terrible fate, and for a long time she lay weeping as if her heart would break. Then, looking about her, she saw the opening to a cavern in the rocks, resembling an arch of crystal, so bravely did it glitter.

Around the hillock where she lay was a small courtyard with turf as smooth as velvet, and upon the rocky walls encircling it were trained vines of roses, myrtle and jasmine, covered with lovely blossoms. Hilda, who knew best the alp-rose and the corn-flower, the hardy violet and the rock-seeking columbine, had never seen such rare and radiant flowers as these, and their rich perfume intoxicated her with delight. Stealing down the side of the cliff, trickled a sparkling rivulet, its stream caught in a basin of gleaming pearl. Hilda, enchanted by the lovely scene, forgot her grief, and felt a longing desire to follow the path of many-colored pebbles leading beneath the crystal arch. Without a token of fear, she tripped along this pretty path winding through a gallery supported by pillars of frosted silver. Here and there glowed a lamp of pink, blue or crimson, fashioned like a flower. Strains of sweet music were heard in the distance, and at last Hilda reached a gate of golden trellis-work, beside which slept a tiny old man, whose beard and hair fell over his red mantle to the very ground.

"He is very old, and no doubt needs his rest," said Hilda; "I won't disturb him, poor old man." So she sat down on the ground at his feet, and every time his head nodded to his knees, she would pick up the queer little red cap that fell off of it, and put it on again. After a long, comfortable nap, the old fellow woke up, and saw Hilda sitting at his feet.

"You are a kind maiden," he said, for he was of a race that know everything without waiting to be told--the Gnomes. "Since you have been so good to me, I will let you pass the wicket. Six months ago your father came this way, and if you can but make friends with our mistress, you may be allowed to see him."

"My father! My dear father!" cried Hilda, overjoyed. "Oh! you good, kind gateman, do lead me to where he is."

"Hush! not a sound," said the Gnome, looking about him in alarm. "Everything has ears and tongues too in this place. One warning will I give you. Answer not when spoken to, serve faithfully, break nothing, show no surprise; and when you can capture the bird that bathes daily in the fountain of life, save the drops from off his plumage. Now go on; and farewell, as no one who passes me comes back this way."

Hilda was frightened by the mystery of the warning, but continued on her way, through a long and winding passage in the rocks, dimly lighted here and there by hanging lamps of alabaster. Reaching another little wicket-gate of golden trellis-work, she summoned all her courage and rang the bell. Out came a hideous crone, whose ears, grown to an enormous size, hung down upon her neck, and who, without asking her business, opened the gate.

"If ears grow like this," thought Hilda, "I had, indeed, better hold my tongue and say nothing to give offence." So, pretending to be dumb, she curtsied to the crone, and made signs that she wanted food and drink. The old woman led Hilda along the path of a neglected garden, to a house built of gray lichen from the bark of trees, and thatched with hoary moss. The windows were barred, and in the open doorway sat a cross old dame, at her knitting. She had a hump, ears larger than those of the lodge-keeper, and claws hooked like an eagle's.

"What! another of those foolish mortals fallen down our pit!" she cried, angrily; "I have half a mind to kill her on the spot." But Hilda looked so meek and imploring, standing there and saying not a word, that the Grandmother of the Gnomes relented. "Well, well," she grunted, "although she is decidedly overgrown, and has ridiculously small ears, I suppose I may as well try her for a nurse-maid. If she proves unfaithful, there will be plenty to tell of it, and she will soon go the way of all the rest."

Hilda was pleased at the idea of being a nurse-maid, for she always got on well with children. She followed the G. G. (really, if you will excuse me, it will save a great deal of trouble sometimes to abbreviate the old lady's title) inside the queer little house, and there was a room full of owls, bats, toads, mice, and spiders, who came flocking around the new-comer, with every expression of delight.

"Oh! you pretty darlings!" cried the old woman, kissing them rapturously, "here is a new nurse for you; and mind you keep her busy."

When Hilda found that she was expected to bathe, and clean, and walk out with, and sleep with these loathsome creatures, she felt that she had rather die. But fear of the terrible G. G. kept her silent, and setting about her task, she soon had them ready for an airing in the garden. Here she beheld many strange sights, but nothing more curious than to see all the bushes and plants and trees bearing large ears, which, as she drew near, became erect and fixed in an attitude of attention. Remembering the caution of the friendly gnome to express no surprise, Hilda drove her little flock before her along the garden path, then returning to the house, fed them and put them to bed in the most orderly fashion. For reward, she found, on a bench outside the door, a nice bowl of milk with fine white bread and butter, and after devouring it eagerly, she fell asleep. When she awoke next day, Hilda found herself in another garden. This one was most beautiful. All the rose-bushes had gold or silver leaves, and flowers made of jewels. She longed to twitch off one of the shining leaves, but dared not, contenting herself with watering their roots and neatly clearing up the paths, as the Gnome Grandmother had directed her. For reward, she had a bowl of delicious hot soup, and a cup of amber jelly, and falling asleep, she awakened next day in still another garden. Here sported birds of radiant hue and plumage, singing delightfully, as they flitted about the brim of a great marble fountain on a grassy lawn, surrounded by blooming flowers.

"Here, children, I bring you a new nurse-maid," said the Gnome Grandmother, presenting her to the birds; and immediately, the lovely creatures surrounded Hilda, perching on her arms, her head, her shoulders, and caressing her with evident pleasure.

"Now that you have successfully met my three tests--the first, of your fidelity, by doing your duty toward the creatures you abhorred; secondly, by passing through my jewel-garden without plucking a flower or leaf; thirdly, by showing no surprise at the wonders you have seen--you have proved yourself worthy to be the keeper of my birds," said the old woman. "It is well for you that the ears have heard no grumbling. And mind you go on as you've begun."