Kitabı oku: «Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia: Being the Adventures of Prince Prigio's Son», sayfa 4

CHAPTER VI.
Ricardo’s Repentance

The queen, as it happened fortunately, was lunching with one of the ladies of her Court. Ricardo did not come down to luncheon, and Jaqueline ate hers alone; and very mournful she felt. The prince had certainly not come well out of the adventure. He had failed (as all attempts to restore the Stuarts always did); he had been wounded, though he had never received a scratch in any of his earlier exploits; and if his honour was safe, and his good intentions fully understood, that was chiefly due to Jaqueline, and to the generosity of King James and Prince Charles.

“I wonder what he’s doing?” she said to herself, and at last she went up and knocked at Ricardo’s door.

“Go away,” he said; “I don’t want to see anybody. Who is it?”

“It’s only me – Jaqueline.”

“Go away! I want nobody.”

“Do let me in, dear Dick; I have good news for you,” said the princess.

“What is it?” said Ricardo, unlocking the door. “Why do you bother a fellow so?”

He had been crying – his hand obviously hurt him badly; he looked, and indeed he was, very sulky.

“How did you get on in England, Dick?” asked the princess, taking no notice of his bandaged hand.

“Oh, don’t ask me!” said Ricardo. “I’ve not been to England at all.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Everything that is horrid happened,” said Dick; and then, unable to keep it any longer to himself, he said: “I’ve failed to keep my promise; I’ve been insulted, I’ve been beaten by a fellow younger than myself; and, oh! how my hand does hurt, and I’ve got such a headache! And what am I to say to my mother when she asks why my arm is in a sling? and what will my father say? I’m quite broken down and desperate. I think I’ll run away to sea;” and indeed he looked very wild and miserable.

“Tell me how it all happened, Dick,” said the princess; “I’m sure it’s not so bad as you make out. Perhaps I can help you.”

“How can a girl help a man?” cried Dick, angrily; and poor Jaqueline, remembering how she had helped him, at the risk of her own life, when King James nearly crushed her in the shape of a mosquito, turned her head away, and cried silently.

“I’m a beast,” said Dick. “I beg your pardon, Jack dear. You are always a trump, I will say; but I don’t see what you can do.”

Then he told her all the story (which, of course, she knew perfectly well already), except the part played by the mosquito, of which he could not be aware.

“I was sure it was not so bad as you made it out, Dick,” she said. “You see, the old king, who is not very wise, but is a perfectly honourable gentleman, gave you the highest praise.” She thought of lecturing him a little about disobeying his father, but it did not seem a good opportunity. Besides, Jaqueline had been lectured herself lately, and had not enjoyed it.

“What am I to say to my mother?” Dick repeated.

“We must think of something to say,” said Jaqueline.

“I can’t tell my mother anything but the truth,” Ricardo went on. “Here’s my hand, how it does sting! and she must find out.”

“I think I can cure it,” said Jaqueline. “Didn’t you say Prince Charles gave you his own sword?”

“Yes, there it is; but what has that to do with it?”

“Everything in the world to do with it, my dear Dick. How lucky it is that he gave it to you!”

And she ran to her own room, and brought a beautiful golden casket, which contained her medicines.

Taking out a small phial, marked (in letters of emerald):

“Weapon Salve,”

the princess drew the bright sword, extracted a little of the ointment from the phial, and spread it on a soft silk handkerchief.

“What are you going to do with the sword?” asked Ricardo.

“Polish it a little,” said Jaqueline, smiling, and she began gently to rub, with the salve, the point of the rapier.

As she did so, Ricardo’s arm ceased to hurt, and the look of pain passed from his mouth.

“Why, I feel quite better!” he said. “I can use my hand as well as ever.”

Then he took off the stained handkerchief, and, lo, there was not even a mark where the wound had been! For this was the famous Weapon Salve which you may read about in Sir Kenelm Digby, and which the Lady of Branxholme used, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel. But the secret of making it has long been lost, except in Pantouflia.

“You are the best girl in the world, Jaqueline,” said Ricardo. “You may give me a kiss if you like; and I won’t call you ‘Jack,’ or laugh at you for reading books, any more. There’s something in books after all.”

The princess did not take advantage of Dick’s permission, but advised him to lie down and try to sleep.

“I say, though,” he said, “what about my father?”

“The king need never be told anything about it,” said Jaqueline, “need he?”

“Oh, that won’t do! I tell my father everything; but then, I never had anything like this to tell him before. Don’t you think, Jaqueline, you might break it to him? He’s very fond of you. Just tell him what I told you; it’s every word of it true, and he ought to know. He might see something about it in the Mercure de France.”

This was the newspaper of the period.

“I don’t think it will get into the papers,” said Jaqueline, smiling. “Nobody could tell, except the king and the princes, and they have reasons for keeping it to themselves.”

“I don’t trust that younger one,” said Dick, moodily; “I don’t care for that young man. Anyway, my father must be told; and, if you won’t, I must.”

“Well, I’ll tell him,” said Jaqueline. “And now lie down till evening.”

After dinner, in the conservatory, Jaqueline told King Prigio all about it.

His Majesty was very much moved.

“What extraordinary bad luck that family has!” he thought. “If I had not changed the rug, the merest accident, Prince Charles would have dined at St. James’s to-night, and King George in Hanover. It was the very nearest thing!”

“This meddling with practical affairs will never do,” he said aloud.

“Dick has had a lesson, sire,” said the princess. “He says he’ll never mix himself up with politics again, whatever happens. And he says he means to study all about them, for he feels frightfully ignorant, and, above all, he means to practise his fencing.”

These remarks were not part of the conversation between Ricardo and Jaqueline, but she considered that Dick meant all this, and, really, he did.

“That is well, as far as it goes,” said the king. “But, Jaqueline, about that mosquito?” for she had told him this part of the adventure. “That was a very convenient mosquito, though I don’t know how Dick was able to observe it from any distance. I see your hand in that, my dear, and I am glad you can make such kind and wise use of the lessons of the good Fairy Paribanou. Jaqueline,” he added solemnly, laying his hand on her head, “You have saved the honour of Pantouflia, which is dearer to me than life. Without your help, I tremble to think what might have occurred.”

The princess blushed very much, and felt very happy.

“Now run away to the queen, my dear,” said his Majesty, “I want to think things over.”

He did think them over, and the more he thought the more he felt the inconvenience attending the possession of fairy things.

“An eclipse one day, as nearly as possible a revolution soon after!” he said to himself. “But for Jaqueline, Ricardo’s conduct would have been blazed abroad, England would have been irritated. It is true she cannot get at Pantouflia very easily; we have no sea-coast, and we are surrounded by friendly countries. But it would have been a ticklish and discreditable position. I must really speak to Dick,” which he did next morning after breakfast.

“You have broken my rules, Ricardo,” he said. “True, there is no great harm done, and you have confessed frankly; but how am I to trust you any longer?”

“I’ll give you my sacred word of honour, father, that I’ll never meddle with politics again, or start on an expedition, without telling you. I have had enough of it. And I’ll turn over a new leaf. I’ve learned to be ashamed of my ignorance; and I’ve sent for Francalanza, and I’ll fence every day, and read like anything.”

“Very good,” said the king. “I believe you mean what you say. Now go to your fencing lesson.”

“But, I say, father,” cried Ricardo, “was it not strange about the magic carpet?”

“I told you not to trust to these things,” said the king. “Some enchanter may have deprived it of its power, it may be worn out, someone may have substituted a common Persian rug; anything may happen. You must learn to depend on yourself. Now, be off with you, I’m busy. And remember, you don’t stir without my permission.”

The prince ran off, and presently the sounds of stamping feet and “un, deux; doublez, dégagez, vite; contre de carte,” and so forth, might be heard over a great part of the royal establishment.

CHAPTER VII.
Prince Ricardo and an Old Enemy

“There is one brute I wish I could get upsides with,” said Ricardo, at breakfast one morning, his mouth full of sardine.

“Really, Ricardo, your language is most unprincely,” said his august father; “I am always noticing it. You mean, I suppose, that there is one enemy of the human race whom you wish to abolish. What is the name of the doomed foe?”

“Well, he is the greatest villain in history,” said Ricardo. “You must have read about him, sir, the Yellow Dwarf.”

“Yes, I have certainly studied what is told us about him,” said the king. “He is no favourite of mine.”

“He is the only one, if you notice, sir, of all the scoundrels about whom our ancestors inform us, who escaped the doom which he richly merited at the sword of a good knight.”

You may here remark that, since Dick took to his studies, he could speak, when he chose, like a printed book, which was by no means the case before.

“If you remember, sir, he polished off – I mean, he slew – the King of the Golden Mines and the beautiful, though frivolous, Princess Frutilla. All that the friendly Mermaid could do for them was to turn them into a pair of beautiful trees which intertwine their branches. Not much use in that, sir! And nothing was done to the scoundrel. He may be going on still; and, with your leave, I’ll go and try a sword-thrust with him. Francalanza says I’m improving uncommon.”

“You’ll take the usual Sword of Sharpness,” said his Majesty.

“What, sir, to a dwarf? Not I, indeed: a common small sword is good enough to settle him.”

“They say he is very cunning of fence,” said the king; “and besides, I have heard something of a diamond sword that he stole from the King of the Golden Mines.”

“Very likely he has lost it or sold it, the shabby little miscreant; however, I’ll risk it. And now I must make my preparations.”

The king did not ask what they were; as a rule, they were simple. But, being in the shop of the optician that day, standing with his back to the door, he heard Dick come in and order a pair of rose-coloured spectacles, with which he was at once provided. The people of Pantouflia were accustomed to wear them, saying that they improved the complexions of ladies whom they met, and added cheerfulness to things in general.

“Just plain rose-coloured glass, Herr Spex,” said Dick, “I’m not short-sighted.”

“The boy is beginning to show some sense,” said the king to himself, knowing the nature and the difficulties of the expedition.

Ricardo did not disguise his intention of taking with him a Dandie Dinmont terrier, named Pepper, and the king, who understood the motive of this precaution, silently approved.

“The lad has come to some purpose and forethought,” the king said, and he gladly advanced a considerable sum for the purchase of crocodiles’ eggs, which can rarely be got quite fresh. When Jaqueline had made the crocodiles’ eggs, with millet-seed and sugar-candy, into a cake for the Dwarf’s lions, Ricardo announced that his preparations were complete.

Not to be the mere slave of custom, he made this expedition on horseback, and the only magical thing he took with him was the Cap of Darkness (the one which would not work, but he did not know that), and this he put in his pocket for future use. With plenty of egg sandwiches and marmalade sandwiches, and cold minced-collop sandwiches, he pricked forth into the wilderness, making for the country inhabited by the Yellow Dwarf. The princess was glad he was riding, for she privately accompanied him in the disguise of a wasp; and a wasp, of course, could not have kept up with him in his Seven-league Boots.

“Hang that wops!” said Prince Ricardo several times, buffeting it with his pocket-handkerchief when it buzzed in his ear and round his horse’s head.

Meanwhile, King Prigio had taken his precautions, which were perfectly simple. When he thought Ricardo was getting near the place, the king put on his Wishing Cap, sat down before the magic crystal ball, and kept his eye on the proceedings, being ready to wish the right thing to help Ricardo at the right moment. He left the window wide open, smoked his cigar, and seemed the pattern of a good and wise father watching the conduct of a promising son.

The prince rode and rode, sometimes taking up Pepper on his saddle; passing through forests, sleeping at lonely inns, fording rivers, till one day he saw that the air was becoming Yellow. He knew that this showed the neighbourhood of Jaunia, or Daunia, the country of the Yellow Dwarf. He therefore drew bridle, placed his rose-coloured spectacles on his nose and put spurs to his horse, for the yellow light of Jaunia makes people melancholy and cowardly. As he pricked on, his horse stumbled and nearly came on its nose. The prince noticed that a steel chain had been drawn across the road.

“What caitiff has dared!” he exclaimed, when his hat was knocked off by a well-aimed orange from a neighbouring orange-tree, and a vulgar voice squeaked:

“Hi, Blinkers!”

There was the Yellow Dwarf, an odious little figure, sitting sucking an orange in the tree, swinging his wooden shoes, and grinning all over his wrinkled face.

“Well, young Blinkers!” said the Dwarf, “what are you doing on my grounds? You’re a prince, by your look. Yah! down with kings! I’m a man of the people!”

“You’re a dwarf of the worst description, that’s what you are,” said Ricardo; “and let me catch you, and I’ll flog the life out of you with my riding-whip!”

The very face of the Dwarf, even seen through rose-coloured spectacles, made him nearly ill.

“Yes, when you can catch me,” said the Dwarf; “but that’s not to-day, nor yet to-morrow. What are you doing here? Are you an ambassador, maybe come to propose a match for me? I’m not proud, I’ll hear you. They say there’s a rather well-looking wench in your parts, the Princess Jaqueline – ”

“Mention that lady’s name, you villain,” cried Dick, “and I’ll cut down your orange-tree!” and he wished he had brought the Sword of Sharpness, for you cannot prod down a tree with the point of a rapier.

“Fancy her yourself?” said the Dwarf, showing his yellow teeth with a detestable grin; while Ricardo turned quite white with anger, and not knowing how to deal with this insufferable little monster.

“I’m a widower, I am,” said the Dwarf, “though I’m out of mourning,” for he wore a dirty clay-coloured Yellow jacket. “My illustrious consort, the Princess Frutilla, did not behave very nice, and I had to avenge my honour; in fact, I’m open to any offers, however humble. Going at an alarming sacrifice! Come to my box” (and he pointed to a filthy clay cottage, all surrounded by thistles, nettles, and black boggy water), “and I’ll talk over your proposals.”

“Hold your impudent tongue!” said Dick. “The Princess Frutilla was an injured saint; and as for the lady whom I shall not name in your polluting presence, I am her knight, and I defy you to deadly combat!”

We may imagine how glad the princess was when (disguised as a wasp) she heard Dick say he was her knight; not that, in fact, he had thought of it before.

“Oh! you’re for a fight, are you?” sneered the Dwarf. “I might tell you to hit one of your own weight, but I’m not afraid of six of you. Yah! mammy’s brat! Look here, young Blinkers, I don’t want to hurt you. Just turn old Dobbin’s head, and trot back to your mammy, Queen Rosalind, at Pantouflia. Does she know you’re out?”

“I’ll be into you, pretty quick,” said Ricardo. “But why do I bandy words with a miserable peasant?”

“And don’t get much the best of them either,” said the Dwarf, provokingly. “But I’ll fight, if you will have it.”

The prince leaped from his horse, leaving Pepper on the saddle-bow.

No sooner had he touched the ground than the Dwarf shouted:

“Hi! to him, Billy! to him, Daniel! at him, good lions, at him!” and, with an awful roar, two lions rushed from a neighbouring potato-patch and made for Ricardo. These were not ordinary lions, history avers, each having two heads, each being eight feet high, with four rows of teeth; their skins as hard as nails, and bright red, like morocco.²

The prince did not lose his presence of mind; hastily he threw the cake of crocodiles’ eggs, millet-seed, and sugar-candy to the lions. This is a dainty which lions can never resist, and running greedily at it, with four tremendous snaps, they got hold of each other by their jaws, and their eight rows of teeth were locked fast in a grim and deadly struggle for existence!

The Dwarf took in the affair at a glance.

“Cursed be he who taught you this!” he cried, and then whistled in a shrill and vulgar manner on his very dirty fingers. At his call rushed up an enormous Spanish cat, ready saddled and bridled, and darting fire from its eyes. To leap on its back, while Ricardo sprang on his own steed, was to the active Dwarf the work of a moment. Then clapping spurs to its sides (his spurs grew naturally on his bare heels, horrible to relate, like a cock’s spurs) and taking his cat by the head, the Dwarf forced it to leap on to Ricardo’s saddle. The diamond sword which slew the king of the Golden Mines – that invincible sword which hews iron like a reed – was up and flashing in the air!

At this very moment King Prigio, seeing, in the magic globe, all that passed, and despairing of Ricardo’s life, was just about to wish the dwarf at Jericho, when through the open window, with a tremendous whirr, came a huge vulture, and knocked the king’s wishing cap off! Wishing was now of no use.

This odious fowl was the Fairy of the Desert, the Dwarf’s trusted ally in every sort of mischief. The vulture flew instantly out of the window; and ah! with what awful anxiety the king again turned his eyes on the crystal ball only a parent’s heart can know. Should he see Ricardo bleeding at the feet of the abominable dwarf? The king scarcely dared to look; never before had he known the nature of fear. However, look he did, and saw the dwarf un-catted, and Pepper, the gallant Dandie Dinmont, with his teeth in the throat of the monstrous Spanish cat.

No sooner had he seen the cat leap on his master’s saddle-bow than Pepper, true to the instinct of his race, sprang at its neck, just behind the head – the usual place, – and, with an awful and despairing mew, the cat (Peter was its name) gave up its life.

The dwarf was on his feet in a moment, waving the diamond sword, which lighted up the whole scene, and yelling taunts. Pepper was flying at his heels, and, with great agility, was keeping out of the way of the invincible blade.

“Ah!” screamed the Dwarf as Pepper got him by the ankle. “Call off your dog, you coward, and come down off your horse, and fight fair!”

At this moment, bleeding yellow blood, dusty, mad with pain, the dwarf was a sight to strike terror into the boldest.

Dick sprang from his saddle, but so terrific was the appearance of his adversary, and so dazzling was the sheen of the diamond sword, that he put his hand in his pocket, drew out, as he supposed, the sham Cap of Darkness, and placed it on his head.

“Yah! who’s your hatter?” screamed the infuriated dwarf. “I see you!” and he disengaged, feinted in carte, and made a lunge in seconde at Dick which no mortal blade could have parried. The prince (thanks to his excellent training) just succeeded in stepping aside, but the dwarf recovered with astonishing quickness.

“Coward, lâche, poltroon, runaway!” he hissed through his clenched teeth, and was about to make a thrust in tierce which must infallibly have been fatal, when the Princess Jaqueline, in her shape as a wasp, stung him fiercely on the wrist.

With an oath so awful that we dare not set it down, the dwarf dropped the diamond sword, sucked his injured limb, and began hopping about with pain.

In a moment Prince Ricardo’s foot was on the blade of the diamond sword, which he passed thrice through the body of the Yellow Dwarf. Squirming fearfully, the little monster expired, his last look a defiance, his latest word an insult:

“Yah! Gig-lamps!”

Prince Ricardo wiped the diamond blade clean from its yellow stains.

“Princess Frutilla is avenged!” he cried. Then pensively looking at his fallen foe, “Peace to his ashes,” he said; “he died in harness!”

Turning at the word, he observed that the two lions were stiff and dead, locked in each other’s gory jaws!

At that moment King Prigio, looking in the crystal ball, gave a great sigh of relief.

“All’s well that ends well,” he said, lighting a fresh cigar, for he had allowed the other to go out in his excitement, “but it was a fight! I am not satisfied,” his Majesty went on reflecting, “with this plan of changing the magical articles. The first time was of no great importance, and I could not know that the boy would start on an expedition without giving me warning. But, in to-day’s affair he owes his safety entirely to himself and Pepper,” for he had not seen the wasp. “The Fairy of the Desert quite baffled me: it was terrible. I shall restore the right fairy things to-night. As to the Fairy of the Desert,” he said, forgetting that his Wishing Cap was on, “I wish she were dead!”

A hollow groan and the sound of a heavy body falling interrupted the king. He looked all about the room, but saw nothing. He was alone!

“She must have been in the room, invisible,” said the king; and, of course, she has died in that condition. “But I must find her body!”

The king groped about everywhere, like a blind man, and at last discovered the dead body of the wicked fairy lying on the sofa. He could not see it, of course, but he felt it with his hands.

“This is very awkward,” he remarked. “I cannot ring for the servants and make them take her away. There is only one plan.”

So he wished she were in her family pyramid, in the Egyptian desert, and in a second the sofa was unoccupied.

“A very dangerous and revengeful enemy is now removed from Ricardo’s path in life,” said his Majesty, and went to dress for dinner.

Meanwhile Ricardo was riding gaily home. The yellow light of Jaunia had vanished, and pure blue sky broke overhead as soon as the dauntless Dwarf had drawn his latest breath. The poor, trembling people of the country came out of their huts and accompanied Dick, cheering, and throwing roses which had been yellow roses, but blushed red as soon as the Dwarf expired. They attended him to the frontiers of Pantouflia, singing his praises, which Ricardo had the new and inestimable pleasure of knowing to be deserved.

“It was sharp work,” he said to himself, “but much more exciting and glorious than the usual business.”

On his return Dick did not fail to mention the wasp, and again the king felt how great was his debt to Jaqueline. But they did not think it well to trouble the good queen with the dangers Dick had encountered.