Kitabı oku: «The Princess Nobody», sayfa 2

Well, this joyful life went on till the Princess Niente was growing quite a big girl; she was nearly fourteen. Then, one day, came a tremendous knock at the Palace gates. Out rushed the Porter, and saw a little Dwarf, in a red cap, and a red cloak, riding a green Frog.

 
What a Baby: how absurd
To be bullied by a Bird!
 

“Tell the King he is wanted,” said the Dwarf.

The Porter carried this rude message, and the King went trembling to the door.

“I have come to claim your promise; you give me NIENTE,” said the Dwarf, in his froggy voice.

Now the King had spoken long ago about his foolish promise, to the Queen of the Water Fairies, a very powerful person, and Godmother of his child.

“The Dwarf must be one of my people, if he rides a Frog,” the Queen of the Water Fairies had said. “Just send him to me, if he is troublesome.”

The King remembered this when he saw the Dwarf, so he put a bold face on it.

“That’s you, is it?” said the King to the Dwarf. “Just you go to the Queen of the Water Fairies; she will have a word to say to you.”

When the Dwarf heard that, it was his turn to tremble. He shook his little fist at the King; he half-drew his sword.

“I’ll have NIENTE yet,” he said, and he set spurs to his Frog, and bounded off to see the Queen of the Water Fairies.

It was night by the time the Dwarf reached the stream where the Queen lived, among the long flags and rushes and reeds of the river.

Here you see him by the river; how tired his Frog looks! He is talking to the Water Fairy. Well, he and the Water Fairy had a long talk, and the end of it was that the Fairy found only one way of saving the Princess. She flew to the King, and said, “I can only help you by making the Princess vanish clean away. I have a bird here on whose back she can fly away in safety. The Dwarf will not get her, but you will never see her again, unless a brave Prince can find her where she is hidden, and guarded by my Water Fairies.”

Then the poor mother and father cried dreadfully, but they saw there was no hope. It was better that the Princess should vanish away, than that she should be married to a horrid rude Dwarf, who rode on a Frog. So they sent for the Princess, and kissed her, and embraced her, and wept over her, and (gradually she faded out of their very arms, and vanished clean away) then she flew away on the bird’s back.

 
Here’s a Dwarf upon a Snail,
Take him off at once to jail!
 

CHAPTER II.
IN MUSHROOM LAND

NOW all the Kingdom next Fairy Land was miserable, and All the people were murmuring, and the King and Queen were nearly melted in tears. They thought of all ways to recover their dear daughter, and at last the Queen hit on a plan.

“My dear,” she said to the King, “let us offer to give our daughter for a wife, to any Prince who will only find her and bring her home.”

“Who will want to marry a girl he can’t see?” said the King. “If they have not married pretty girls they can see, they won’t care for poor Niente.”

“Never mind; we can only try,” said the Queen. So she sent out messengers into all the world, and sent the picture of the Princess everywhere, and proclaimed that the beautiful Princess Niente, and no less than three-quarters of the Kingdom would be given to the Prince that could find the Princess and bring her home. And there was to be a great tournament, or sham fight, at the Palace, to amuse all the Princes before they went on the search. So many Princes gathered together, all full of hope; and they rode against each other with spears and swords, and knocked each other about, and afterwards dined, and danced, and made merry. Some Fairy Knights, too, came over the border, and they fought with spears, riding Beetles and Grasshoppers, instead of horses. Here is a picture of a “joust,” or tournament, between two sets of Fairy Knights. By all these warlike exercises, they increased their courage till they felt brave enough to fight all the Ghosts, and all the Giants, if only they could save the beautiful Princess.

Well, the tournaments were over, and off all the Princes went into Fairy Land. What funny sights they saw in Fairy Land! They saw a great Snail race, the Snails running so fast, that some of the Fairy jockeys fell off on the grass. They saw a Fairy boy dancing with a Squirrel, and they found all the birds, and all the beasts, quite friendly and kind, and able to talk like other people. This was the way in old times, but now no beasts talk, and no birds, except Parrots only.

Now among all this gallant army of Princes, one was ugly, and he looked old, and odd, and the rest laughed at him, and called him the Prince Comical. But he had a kind heart. One day, when he was out walking alone, and thinking what he could do to find the Princess, he saw three bad little boys teasing a big Daddy Long Legs. They had got hold of one of his legs, and were pulling at it with all their might. When the Prince Comical saw this, he ran up and drove the bad boys away, and rubbed the limb of the Daddy Long Legs, till he gave up groaning and crying. Then the Daddy Long Legs sat up, and said in a weak voice, “You have been very kind to me; what can I do for you?”