CHAPTER III

THE CAPTIVITY

It was now autumn, and dark in Lapland.

The Lapp woman, Pimpedora, sat and cooked porridge over a blazing fire in the tent, while her son Pimpepanturi sat waiting for the porridge and looking idly at his reindeer shoes. Pimpepanturi was a good-natured boy; but he was stupid, and not a little lazy besides. His father, Hirmu, had wished very much to bring him up as a wizard, but it was of no use. Pimpepanturi thought more about eating and drinking than of learning anything,--whether sorcery or what not.

The Lapp woman turned toward the boy, and said, "Don't you hear something?"

"I hear the fire crackle and the porridge bubble in the pot," answered Pimpepanturi with a long yawn.

"Don't you hear something like a roar out in the autumn night?" asked the Lapp woman again.

"Yes," said Pimpepanturi; "that is a wolf taking some of our reindeer."

"No," said the Lapp woman; "that is Father coming back. He has now been away four winters, but I hear him growling like a wild animal. He must have hurried to have reached home so soon again!"

At that moment Hirmu entered in the semblance of a tiger with the Princess Lindagull hanging from his mouth. Placing her on a heap of moss in the corner of the tent, he quickly regained his own body (replacing his own heart in it now), at the same time calling out, "Mother, what food have you? I have run a long way."

The tiger fell dead upon the moss in the tent. The Lapp woman had nearly fallen into the porridge-pot from fright; but she recognized her husband and promised him a good supper, if he would tell her where he had been these four winters, and what kind of a grand doll he had brought home with him.

"That is too long a story to tell," grumbled the husband. "Take care of our grand doll and give her warm reindeer milk to restore her to life. She is a fine young lady from Persia. She will bring us good fortune."

Princess Lindagull was not dead,--not even wounded. She had only fainted from fright. When she awoke she lay (in her rich clothing of pearls and silver tissue) on a reindeer skin spread over moss, in the Lapp tent. It was dark and cold. The firelight shone on the close walls of the tent and on the Lapp woman, who gave her reindeer milk to drink. Lindagull believed herself to be in death's domain under the earth; and cried because she, so young, should be snatched away from Persia's sun and Ispahan's lovely rose gardens.

The wizard, in the meantime, hit upon a happy plan for winning Persian treasure, and said to Lindagull:

"Weep not, beautiful princess. Thou art not dead. Thou hast only been stolen away by a horrid tiger and my son, the brave Knight Morus Pandorus von Pikkuluk'ulikuck'ulu, has saved thee at the greatest risk of his own precious life. We will be thy slaves and serve thee with the utmost zeal until it becomes possible to conduct thee back to Persia."

"What lie is that, old man?" said the honest Lapp woman in her own language to the wizard.

The wizard continued: "My wife says that if thou wilt take our son, the surpassingly beautiful and brave knight, Morus Pandorus von Pikkuluk'ulikuck'ulu, for thy bridegroom, we will immediately conduct thee back to Persia."

Pimpepanturi did not understand Persian; so he made great eyes when his father pushed him forward toward the princess and pressed his stiff back down with both hands that it might appear as if Pimpepanturi were bowing.

Lindagull would not have been a princess and the daughter of proud Shah Nadir if she had not felt herself insulted by such an indignity. She gazed scornfully at the wizard, and at his clumsy lout of a son,--with such eyes! Nay! it was not a gaze; for her eyes flashed lightning! (And Persian eyes can flash lightning!) Father and son both flushed dark red.

"No, that won't do," said the wizard. "She must first be tamed."

Then the wizard made a partition in the tent, three yards long and two yards wide. There he imprisoned Lindagull, and gave her half a reindeer cheese and a dipper of melted snow-water every day for food.

Thus day and night passed by in darkness, for winter came quickly; and the Northern Lights shone in through the cracks of the tent.

Poor, innocent little Lindagull! Her eyes had flashed lightning once; but as in thunder-storms it is not long between lightning gleams and showers of rain, so the tears of Princess Lindagull soon began to fall. Yes, she cried as one only can cry when one is twelve years old and has been a princess in Persia and lived in rose-gardens and marble castles, guarded by the friendliest attendants, and then suddenly finds herself hungry and freezing, alone, in a dark Lapland winter. Yes, she wept as one weeps over lost youth, health and beauty;--over a lost life; as the dew weeps over a beautiful extinguished day in Ispahan's pleasure garden.

When she had done weeping she slept. But lo! while she slept, there stood by her side the friendly old fellow whom the Finns call Nukku Matti, whom the Swedes call Jon Blund, and whom the Danes and Norwegians call Ole Luköje,[4]--(I don't know what they call him in Persia;) and he took her in his arms, bore her to Feather Islands and laid her on a bed of fragrant roses in a lovely grotto. There all was peaceful and good. The soft moon shone over date-palms and myrtle forests, just as in Persia's fairest springtime. Small airy Dreams danced forth to her with silken shoes over velvet rugs, and led her back to her home; to her father the old Shah Nadir, to her friendly attendants and to all the places dear to her from birth. And so passed the long winter nights.

And so passed weeks and months in the Kingdom of Dreams; because it was now night altogether. But Lindagull was patient and wept no more. The Dreams had said to her, "Wait; thy deliverer will come----"

Who would deliver her? Who should discover a path where no path lay, far away in the snow?

The Lapp woman would willingly have set her free, but dared not on account of her husband. And Pimpepanturi also had thoughts of it, but was too lazy.

At length the winter was ended. The sun dared to shine, the snow melted and the gnats danced about. Then the wizard thought, "Now she is tamed!" Whereupon he went to Lindagull and asked if she wished to travel back to Persia. If so, she need only to accept the grandly courageous and highly admired knight, Morus Pandorus von Pikkuluk'ulikuck'ulu for her bridegroom, and the reindeer would immediately stand harnessed at the door ready to travel southward.

Lindagull did not shoot glances of lightning this time. But she thought of the young Prince Abderraman who had once bled for her on Ispahan's sand; and remembering his face she could not possibly accept Pimpepanturi. She answered nothing.

At this the wizard became very angry. He shut the Princess Lindagull in a deep, dark grotto on a mountainside, and said to her (dropping the grandiloquent style he had heretofore used): "Soon the cloudberries will be ripe. You shall keep account of the days as they pass, in this way. The first day you shall have thirty cloudberries to eat and thirty dewdrops to drink; the next day twenty-nine cloudberries to eat and twenty-nine dewdrops to drink; and so on, for each day one berry and one drop less. On the last day you shall tell me what you have decided."

So Lindagull stayed there confined in the grotto. The time of year had now come when barren Lapland shone with light both day and night; but the grotto was dark. The cloudberries and dewdrops steadily lessened in number, but Lindagull's cheeks became no paler and her quiet patience continued the same as before. What she had to forego by day Nukku Matti and the Dreams made up to her every night. They lifted off the rocky roof by their magic power so that she could see the glowing midnight sun and hear the roar of the waterfall as it hurled itself over the edge of the rock. Drippings from this waterfall fell into the grotto in the form of a delicious honey-dew, which served the starving one as refreshing meat and drink.

The thoughts of Princess Lindagull dwelt often upon Prince Abderraman. She sang ballads of the Eastern lands, and it pleased her to hear a hundred clear-voiced echoes answer back from the mountain walls. On the thirtieth day, the wizard brought her the last berry and the last dewdrop laid upon a leaf of Lapland dwarf-birch.

"Well now," he asked, "have you decided?"

Lindagull covered her fair face and answered nothing.

"There is still one day's time for thought," said the wizard, "and you shall have some company to help hasten your decision." As he said this he opened the door of the grotto, and immediately something like a great cloud streamed in. It was a swarm of Lapland's starved-out gnats. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of them, and they filled the grotto like a thick cloud of smoke.

"I wish you much joy in your new acquaintances!" said the ugly wizard, shutting the door quickly as he went out.

Lindagull did not understand his meaning. She did not know the sting of the Lapland gnat. She had never been annoyed by the Persian firefly even, for a slave had always stood at her side night and day with a long waving peacock feather to protect her from all hurtful insects. The knowledge of such suffering as the horde of stinging gnats would have inflicted was kept from her now by the kindly Dreams; who, the instant the door was shut, threw around her a close-woven veil of finest texture, from the loom of the fairies. Through this veil the gnats could not make their way. Not a drop of royal blood did they taste, day or night. They bit with all their little power at the hard granite rocks; but finding these too juiceless, the disappointed insects settled themselves like a gray web about all the cracks and corners of the grotto.

At midnight the door of the grotto was noiselessly opened and in walked the Lapp woman, Pimpedora, with a jar in her hand, followed by Pimpepanturi carrying a burning torch and some smoked reindeer meat.

"Poor child," said the good-hearted Lapp woman, "it is a sin to keep you here; but I dare not let you out, for if I did my husband would change me to a mountain rat. See, I have brought you some pitch-oil in my jar. Spread it all over your body; that will keep you from being stung to death by the gnats."

"And see here, I have brought you a smoked shoulder of reindeer so that you shall not starve to death," said Pimpepanturi, good-naturedly. "It is somewhat nibbled, because I grew so very hungry on the way; but there is still a little meat on the bone. And I stole the key of the grotto while Father slept, but I dare not let you out, for if I did Father would change me into a wolverine. But you need not trouble yourself about taking me for your husband. I'll wager that you cannot even cook a black pudding properly."

"No, I know I cannot, truly," answered Princess Lindagull, and she thanked them both for their good-will, but explained to them that she was neither hungry nor gnat-stung.

"Well! Keep the pitch-oil for safety's sake," said the Lapp woman.

"Yes, keep the shoulder of reindeer, too," said Pimpepanturi.

"A thousand thanks," replied Lindagull.

Then the door was closed and she was again alone.

The next morning the wizard came, expecting that now he should surely find his captive half stung to death by gnats and completely subdued. But when he saw Lindagull as blooming as before, and saw her again look thoughtfully into his face without speaking, his wrath knew no bounds.

"Come out!" he shouted.

Lindagull stepped forth in the clear day, as delicate and bright as a fairy in moonlight. When she threw back her veil to look about, the sun shone before her, warm and radiant as on a spring morning in the blue mountains of Afghanistan.

Then said the wizard: "I have a great mind to take you to old King Bom Bali in Turan. He would load six asses with gold to get hold of you for a single day! But no; I will not give up yet. Listen to what I have decided upon. You shall be turned into a heather blossom on a Lappish moor and live only as long as a heather blossom lives, unless you will yield to my wishes. Notice the sun: it now stands low in the sky. In two weeks and a day comes the first polar frost. Then the heather blossoms die. Just before the frost comes, I shall question you for the last time."

Glaring at her, he waited, as if expecting the desired answer at once; but as Lindagull again only gazed thoughtfully up at him in silence, the wizard cried out in a voice trembling with anger:

"_Adáma donai Marrabataësan!_"

which meant, "Human life! sink into the likeness of a flower!"

The wizard had learned these magic words one autumn evening from the South Wind when it came from the African desert and laid itself to rest on a Lapland mountain. The wind understands all languages, for all words are spoken in its hearing.

As the magician uttered this frightful command, it seemed to Lindagull as if all the flower-stalks on the heath grew to trees and overshadowed her; but it was she herself who sank down to the earth. The next moment a stranger's eye could no longer distinguish her from the thousands and thousands of pale purple-pink heather blossoms on the Lappish waste. "In one day and two weeks!" mumbled the wizard, casting a malignant glance behind him as he turned back to his tent.

[4] Ole Shut-Eye. (The Sandman.)