Chapter II: Part 2

“Lazybones,” said the Snail with his great-auntliest air, “look it up on the map!”

So they continued to bow, and the Spider (who didn’t look it up) embroidered a little sampler with these words on it and fastened it over Nikko’s door:

“Here under curtains magnificent dwells
Nikko, the Empress of Everywhere Else!”

PETER DWARF

Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a dark hut under a willow tree. His face, and his wife’s face, and the faces of their six black-haired children, were as dark and gnarled as the willow trunk. But when their seventh son was born, he was a light-haired boy, with clear blue eyes, and a smile like golden sunshine.

“This is not our child!” cried the black-eyed man and the black-eyed woman; “this yellow-haired baby is a changeling; the dwarfs have put him into the cradle!” So they called him Peter Dwarf. They were very unkind to him, and when he grew older they made him do hard, ugly work, like picking nettles and killing lambs. Peter liked to work, but he did not at all like to kill poor little lambs.

One day it happened that the cat got into the larder and ate a big piece of meat. The black-eyed woman took her by the tail and flung her out of the window at Peter Dwarf, telling him that he must get rid of her at once. But when he had the lovely white cat in his arms, she looked at him so pleadingly that tears came into his eyes, and he said: “Minka, I cannot hurt you! But if I don’t obey, my father and mother will be very angry.’” But the cat still looked at him so sorrowfully that he said: “Minka, let us both run away. You shall not be harmed.”

They walked over many fields where corn and beans grew in rows and the rabbits jumped away as they came. When night fell they had reached a mountain, and there were no more fields, only roots and rocks and shadowy trees.

“Let us go into a cave to sleep,” Peter Dwarf suggested. So they crept into a deep cavern, which seemed to have no end. Peter spread his coat and lay down; but Minka crept into all the dark crannies mewing and scratching, and finally she disappeared. When Peter heard her come back again, he could only see her eyes, shining like stars in the rocky passage.

“Oho!” he cried, and the cavern echoed, “does this vault go on into the mountain? I must see how far it goes.” So he took up his coat and followed Minka. Presently they were in the heart of the hill. The caves were cold and damp, and it was very dark. Then Peter, shuddering, turned around to go back, but he was entirely lost among the winding passages, and the white cat walked aimlessly from one cavern to another. At last, after much wandering, they saw a light, and at the same time they heard voices—little buzzing voices, that sounded like a copper dish when you strike it and set it ringing.

“They are coming this way!” whispered Peter Dwarf. “Look, they have lanterns—they will save us. But who are they?—Minka, they are the Diggerfolk—the Dwarfs!”

Presently they came, and their lanterns made shadowy circles on the walls. They were little men, in gay, patched clothes, and their faces were brown and wrinkled like walnuts. They stopped, raised their arms, and pointed at Peter, crying all together:

“Here is a mortal! Here is a child of mortals, in our own native caverns!”

Now Peter had gone many hours without anything to eat, and the darkness and hunger had made him shaky. His knees gave way under him and he sank down on the stone.

“Oh Diggerfolk, Diggerfolk, have mercy on us! We are lost, and hungry, and have not a friend in the world!”

The little men all muttered and grunted; they did not look unkind.

“Who are you?” asked one of them who carried a great stone hammer.

“I am Peter Dwarf,” replied the boy, bowing his fair, bright head. “And this”—he drew the white cat into his arms—“this is Minka.”

“Peter Dwarf!” exclaimed the one with the hammer, “why do they call you Dwarf? You are as tall and well-shaped a boy as ever I have seen.”

“Because I have blue eyes and yellow hair,” Peter replied, “I was so different from my brothers, and so ugly that my mother said I was not her own son, but a fairy changeling whom the dwarfs have put into the cradle.”

“Ho, ho!” cried a big dwarf with a bunch of keys at his belt, “so they have sent you back where you came from, have they? And do we look as though we were your relatives? No, no, little boy; take up that purring friend of yours and go home to your mother and tell her that this is no place either for her child or her pussy-cat.”

Peter was still kneeling on the ground, and Minka sat between his knees. Now he stretched his arms toward the little men, and implored:

“Oh good kind Diggerfolk, let me go with you and work for you! My mother has not sent me; I ran away, because I would not hurt Minka, and they would have been very angry with me. I will work for you from morning until night, only let me stay!”

“Work?” said the dwarf with the hammer, “how can such a slight and princely creature work? Peter, let me see your hands.” He felt Peter’s hands; they were thin and strong and callous. “Yes,” he said, “this boy knows what it is to work, I think we had better let him stay with us. And now, Peter, since you are coming with us, let us have a general introduction. My name is Stroke,” and he bowed as best he could over his round stomach. “I am a Swordsmith, and he with the pick-axe is a Miner, Mushroom by name; he of the pointed ears is Berry, the Blacksmith; and those three who are talking to the Lady Minka, are Hump, the Goldsmith, Crow the Coppersmith, and Wisely, he that jingles the keys—a Locksmith.”

Peter got up and bowed to the little men. They told him to follow, then they led the way through winding passages down to the very center of the earth.

“Now, if you will truly learn the trades,” they said, “you must work with each one of us for a year. You shall be given plenty to eat, and shall sleep beside the fire.”

So Peter worked for the first year with Mushroom, the Miner. They would go into the shafts together and break the good ore out of the crags, letting the pieces roll with a noise like thunder down into the cave where Thorn, the Smelter, kept his furnace glowing.

The next year Peter worked for Thorn, the Smelter, and his face became a ruddy brown from standing over the roaring furnaces; then he learned from Berry, the Blacksmith, how to make hammers and axes and other tools; and the next year he helped Stroke to fashion swords and armor. He made gold chains and brooches and rings with Hump, and keys with Wisely, the Locksmith. Before the seventh year was over, there was not a lock in all Christendom which Peter could not open.

“Keys,” said Wisely, stroking his silken beard, “Keys are the most magic things in all the world. You have learned your trades well, Peter Dwarf; now we will let you go forth into the world and try your luck. And because you have been faithful and sweet-natured, you shall have a gift of magic. This gift shall be that whenever you stand in another person’s shoes, you will be able to see what that person sees and know what that person knows. Now use your magic as you will, and do not forget us. Good-bye, Peter Dwarf, good-bye!”

All the little dwarfs waved their caps and their big brown hands, as Peter and Minka went back to the sunny upper Earth, which they had not seen for seven years.

They wandered for a long time, when finally they came to the hut where Peter had been born, but strange people lived in it now—his wicked black-eyed family had all died; the woman of a cat-bite, the man of a dog-bite, and the six naughty boys of over-eating. So Peter and his white Pussy walked on for many miles and came to a splendid palace where a king lived with his queen.

“O Minka!” said Peter, quite breathlessly, “if one could only look inside for one single moment! Wouldn’t you love to look inside?”

“Mew-ew,” said the cat, rubbing her head against his bare ankles. “Mew!”

Just then a fat gentleman, in blue and gold attire, came running down the hillside, as fast as he could run. He stopped to catch his breath, and then started again. He was the king’s chamberlain. Peter bowed and spoke to him. “Sir, is there anything I can do for you? If it is an errand, I am a swift runner!”

“Indeed you should be swifter than I,” groaned the chamberlain. “Oh what a stitch I have; what a stitch! Yes, run if you will, and summon all the doctors in the land, and all the wise philosophers; for the King is very ill.”

So Peter ran, as fast as only a bare-foot boy can run; and soon he came to a house that bore a sign:

He drummed on the door until the old magician came out, pipe in hand, to ask what had happened.

“The King is very ill!” cried Peter. “Go swiftly to the palace, good doctor, and find out what ails him.”

All afternoon Peter ran on and on, hunting up physicians and wise men and sending them to the palace. At night he returned to the palace and the blue-and-gold gentleman called him into the banquet hall. Peter’s heart beat high as he entered the shining room which was lit by a thousand candles. Timidly he stood in the doorway, his red pointed cap in his hands and the white cat at his heels.

He almost lost his breath when the Queen stepped through the great portal of gold. She was arrayed in crimson silk, with red roses in her black hair, and tiny silver slippers on her feet.

“Who is the little ragamuffin hiding behind the Lord Chamberlain?” demanded the Queen, spying Peter Dwarf. “Send him here, I would speak with him!”

Peter approached, frightened and dazed, and dropped upon one knee.

“Your Majesty,” he replied to her questioning, “I am Peter Dwarf; the kind Lord Chamberlain has permitted me to enter the hall.”

“I like this boy,” said the Queen to the stout Lord Chamberlain. “Put him into proper clothes and send him back to me; he shall be my page.”

So they took Peter through many snow-white rooms to a little room in the back of the palace. In it were a bed and chairs made of rosewood, and roses painted on the walls, and silver stars on the ceiling; so that when you lay in bed you felt as though you were in a bower, looking up at the starry sky.

“Here is your room,” said the servant who had brought him in. “And these are the clothes you are to wear.”

Peter took off his leather apron and his red cap, and put on a doublet and hose of light blue silk, and a mantle of dark blue velvet. But happy as he was in his rich attire, he did not forget about the king who was so ill. Every time he met somebody who might know, he asked:

“Is his Majesty any better?”

“No,” was always the answer, “He is very ill.”

At last the kind Lord Chamberlain told Peter what the doctors had said.

“Some wicked enemy of the King,” he reported, “is burning a waxen image of his majesty over a slow fire; and as long as the image lasts the King will live, but when it has all melted he will die.”

“Who can it be?” cried Peter. “Does no one know?”

“Nobody knows except the wicked person himself. We think—but say not that I told you—we think it is someone in this very palace, for the good King has no enemies among his neighbors.”

Suddenly Peter remembered the magic power that the dwarfs had given him.

“Let me try on everybody’s shoes,” he cried, “and when I come to the shoes of the wicked person I shall know where the waxen image is melting!”

The Lord Chamberlain gave him permission to creep into every bedroom and dressing room in the palace. Minka always went ahead, and when anyone was in the room she waved her tail to warn Peter away, but when the chamber was empty, she said, “Mew,” and then Peter went in and tried on all the shoes he could find. But all the knowledge that came to him was a lot of little foolish secrets—where the Lady Natalia kept her jewels, and the Lord Richard had ridden over a chicken and had not paid the poor farmer a penny for it, and that the little chambermaid Clarissa was in love with a beggar-man. But he could not find out where the waxen image was melting.

Meanwhile he hardly saw the Queen at all. She was always with the King, bathing his forehead, smoothing his pillow, and getting his chicken broth.

“See,” said the chamberlain and the doctors, “how much she loves him!”

One day the King was tired of having so many people about him, and sent everybody away but the Queen and Peter who had come in to fill the lamps. The Queen was stroking the poor King’s forehead. She had forgotten that Peter was in the room. As soon as he was asleep she doubled up her lovely white hand and shook her fist at him, whispering: “Melt—melt—melt! Another night and you are done!”

Peter thought his heart would stand still. Had he really heard aright? He crept out of the room as quietly as he had come, and hastened to the Queen’s dressing room. Never had it occurred to him to try on _her_ shoes! He attempted to open the door; it was locked. So he turned sadly to his own room, and sat down to think it over.

Presently a valet came in with a message.

“You are to wait on the Queen at dinner tonight,” it read. Peter obeyed, and thought little more about it. But when the Queen was seated he stood behind her chair and he noticed that she slipped her silver shoe off under the table. Deftly he stepped out of his own, and while she was helping herself to pink ice cream, he tried to push his foot into her little shoe. But alas! the shoe was so small that he could not even get his toes into it! He tried and tried, but in vain; he had to give it up.

That night he walked disconsolately with Minka in the garden. They were just under the Queen’s window when suddenly, the casement was opened, and something which looked like a fiery rocket or a shooting star flew out into the air—over their heads.

“A witch!” cried Peter, and then, “The Queen!” For at that very moment a silver slipper fell beside him in the grass. When he had stepped into it at dinner, trying to stand in it for just one moment, he had stretched it so much that now it was too big for the Queen.

As it fell Minka made a leap for it and tapped it with her paws—but no sooner was her little white foot inside the slipper then she began to wave her tail violently. She too had the magic gift of the Dwarfs!

“I believe you know,” cried Peter, as he followed her down the garden walks. “I believe you know where the waxen image is melting!” Peter took the slipper from Minka and she ran ahead swiftly and quietly, and led him over the fields and fences to a high, dark mountain. At the foot of the mountain stood a tower of granite, with great iron doors.

“Mew-ew,” said Minka, as she came up against the iron doors. “Mew!”

Peter tried to force the door but it was strongly locked and would not move. Then he peered through the key-hole, and saw a reddish light, like the glow of a great fire. A voice that sounded like the Queen’s was chanting a dismal verse and Peter knew from what she said that the image would be melted by dawn.

“Come,” said Peter to his cat, “I know what we must do; but it must be quick work! Oh Minka—one more dawn, and it will be too late!”

He went into a cavern at the foot of the mountain. Here he called loudly down the dark passage way—“O Mushroom, Thorn, Stroke, Wisely! Help me—help me—help me!” And in another minute he saw little lights approaching from all parts of the mountain, as the faithful Diggerfolk came to his call.

Swiftly they set up a workshop, smelted the broken ore, hammered and polished and labored as only Dwarfs can. As the first streaks of light showed in the sky, they finished their work. Peter, who had taken off his silken clothes and put on a leather apron, now changed to the new suit of mail they had wrought and parted hastily from his friends with grateful thanks. Besides the armor, they had made him a sword, and most important of all a key to fit the iron doors. Soon he reached the tower again and putting the key into the lock he used all his strength and finally the great doors swung open.

Before him in the tower-chamber burned a mighty fire; the flames jumped up around something that seemed like a human figure, stretched directly above them—but if you looked twice you saw it was a statue of wax, rapidly melting away. Over it the Queen was murmuring incantations while she watched the figure grow smaller and smaller at every lick of the cruel flames.

Suddenly the white cat leaped at the Queen and began to scratch her. This gave Peter time to put out the fire and save the waxen image before it was quite melted.

“I’m coming, Minka, I’m coming!” he cried, as the Queen seized her by the throat and tried to choke her. Minka fought valiantly, until Peter rushed forward and cut off the Queen’s head with a single stroke of his sword. At that moment everything grew dark; a noise like thunder came from the depth of the mountain and Peter clasped his hands over his eyes, for he did not want to see any more.

When he looked up again, the sun had risen. Light flooded the room, and a wonderful lady, clad in white samite as soft and pure as Minka’s fur, stood before him in the shining dawn. She held out her hands, and shaking back her golden hair said:

“Peter Dwarf, my good sweet Peter, I am the Princess Minka; don’t you recognize me?” Then Peter looked into her starry eyes, and knew that his beloved Minka must have been enchanted by the wicked Queen many years ago, and that now the spell was broken.

So they returned swiftly to the royal palace, where they found everybody rejoicing because the King was so much better that that morning he had eaten four buckwheat cakes with syrup for his breakfast. And the King dubbed Peter a knight and made him general of his army and for a wedding present gave him a palace with a great rose-garden and a banquet hall. Soon after this Peter and Minka were married. When the good King died, many years later, they were made King and Queen, and ruled in peace and happiness all the rest of their days.

THE CRYSTAL BOWL

Once upon a time in distant Orient Land, there lived a beautiful royal maiden, the Princess Zarashne. Her hair was long and black as the veils of night, her arms were fair as the pink sea-shells, and her gowns were as glorious in color as the feathers of the peacock. Everybody in the palace where she lived, and in the town outside the palace-walls, loved Princess Zarashne; even the animals who dwelt far away in the desert had heard how good and beautiful she was, and many of them came to town hoping they might see her—the lion and the tiger, and the striped zebra, the ostrich and the camel and the curious giraffe. But the keeper of the palace-gate was afraid to let them in, so the only ones who saw her were the ostrich and the giraffe, because they could look over the wall and watch her feed her gold-fish in the fountain.

Most of all she was beloved by the Prince of all Orient Land, Selim Pasha the Proud (a Pasha is a very mighty kind of Prince, who wears a turban of heavenly blue and carries a curved sword in his golden belt). Selim Pasha rode through the gates of the Palace every morning at sunrise, on a snow-white horse, followed by a hundred soldiers on foot; on his shoulder he always carried a bird of paradise, who made sweet music for Princess Zarashne, and in his pocket he brought his pet white mouse to dance for her. All day long he walked with her in the garden and told her stories about the world outside the wall, where great rivers flowed, and palm-trees grew, and the yellow desert sand stretched from one end of Orient Land to the other. The only thing he did not tell her about was the terrible magician, who lived among the desert sands; he did not want to tell her anything that would give her bad dreams.

The magician was a very mighty and ancient man, called Bulbo. By his strange, black magic he had built himself an impregnable castle and had tamed a great river, and made it surround his castle with a deep, impassable moat. No army could ever pass these waters, or scale his ramparts of yellow sand; if he himself wanted to go out, he rode on the back of a big brown bat. All the creatures of Night, the bats and owls and toads and many wicked faery sprites, dwelt with him in his castle and were his body-guard.

Now it happened that Bulbo the Magician had left his castle and was riding through the air high over Orient Land, in the night-time, as was his wont. He was unusually far from home; in fact, the first light of dawn surprised him just as his bat was fluttering over the royal gardens. The nightingale had stopped singing, and the birds of day had begun, the pansies and daisies and dreamy lotos-flowers were just waking up. Then he saw what seemed to him the loveliest flower of all—it was Princess Zarashne sitting alone beside the gold-fish fountain, waiting for Selim Pasha.

Bulbo spurred his bat, and swooped down among the rose-bushes like a swift, black shadow. Before Princess Zarashne knew what had happened, he had seized her and placed her before him in the saddle between the fluttering wings of the bat, and they were rising up, up, up into the blue morning air!

But just at this moment, the palace-gates swung open, and with a flourish of trumpets and a shout of greeting, Selim Pasha and his soldiers appeared. Great was their horror and dismay when they found the garden empty, and heard Princess Zarashne cry “Help, help!” far above their heads! Selim Pasha bared his sword and tried to reach the bat as it rose, but in vain—in the twinkling of an eye, the sorcerer had flown a thousand miles away.

In Bulbo’s palace, Princess Zarashne found herself a prisoner. She was not cruelly treated, for Bulbo liked her and made her queen of his household. She had nothing to do but water the dark poppies and nightshade and beautiful poisonous berry-bushes that grew in his garden, and make necklaces of the pearls and shells that the river laid at her feet on the yellow sands. But she was very unhappy, for her only companion was a monkey who followed her about as her servant, carrying her tea-cup and her shawls and never saying a word; and she wept to think of the days when Selim Pasha had walked with her by the gold-fish fountain, while the white mouse danced and the bird of paradise sang to her—for she never hoped to see the Prince of all Orient Land again.

Meanwhile, Selim Pasha the Proud was inconsolable without his beloved Princess. His soldiers could not help him against Bulbo’s power, and no prophet, no wise man, no general could tell him how to get Princess Zarashne back. So he put on a black cloak, and put black ashes on his turban, and would not be comforted. When his people saw him in the street, and shouted: “Hail, Selim Pasha the Proud!” he would hide his face in his cloak and say:

“Nay, do not call me the Proud—I am only Poor Selim Pasha!”

Then the people were very sad, and even the animals outside the gates felt mournful. The crocodiles in the rivers wept bitter tears, and the lions and tigers howled in the desert, and when the giraffes and ostriches saw that the garden was empty, they lost their appetites.

One day Selim Pasha met an old man who was selling bowls and vases of glass at the palace gate. Because the prince was wrapped in black and walked unattended, the old man did not recognize him, and thought he was just a humble citizen.

“Good day to you,” said the old man.

The prince stopped and bowed, for it pleased his sorrowful fancy to be taken for an ordinary man.

“Would you not like to buy some of my beautiful vases and bowls?” the old man continued. “I have brought them many hundreds of miles across the desert. Look at them, and you will not feel so sad!”

But the prince shook his head.

“I do not want vases of glass,” he replied, “what I seek is magic knowledge!”

The old man sat down and set his vases and bowls in a dazzling row upon the pavement. They shone in all colors, like the feathers of a peacock, and reminded the prince of Zarashne’s silken gowns.

“I am old and wise,” said the vendor. “I have more knowledge of magic than any man on earth—more even than Bulbo, who lives in the yellow desert. But if you would have a little—ever so little—of it, you must pay the price I ask.”

“Anything, anything you desire,” cried the prince, “though you ask all the treasures of Orient Land!”

“I will have none of your treasures. All I ask is your service. I need an apprentice in my workshop, many hundreds of miles away across the desert, and if you will come and blow glass for me for seven years, you shall have the secret knowledge for your reward.”

The prince thought deeply for a moment. What would his people say if they ever found out that their ruler had become a glass-maker’s apprentice? But then, was not Princess Zarashne’s return worth any sacrifice?

“I will go with you and be your apprentice,” said Selim Pasha the Proud, Prince of Orient Land, “but wait until I get a bundle of clothes, and tell the head-cook not to expect me for dinner, and ask the Lord Chamberlain to feed my white mouse and my bird of Paradise until I come back!”

That same day they mounted camels and set out on their long journey across the desert. They passed the castle of Bulbo, but the rivers that surrounded it were so wide and the ramparts of yellow sand so high that Selim Pasha could not see over them, though he stood on tip-toe on his camel’s hump. Sadly he rode by and followed the old glass-maker to his city, many hundreds of miles away.

When they reached the city, the old man led him to a dingy little house made of bricks and mud. It was very dark inside, for there were no windows.

“Stand very still, my lad, till I light the lamp, or you will break some precious glass!” said the old man. Then he struck a light, and Selim Pasha beheld a most wonderful sight. All about him were vases and bowls and cups of iridescent glass standing on shelves of crystal, and there were delicate flowers made of glass and glittering prisms that caught the lamplight and threw back a thousand brilliant hues.

“Here you shall work for seven years,” said the old man, “and I will teach you how to make all these things, but you will have to sleep on a mat upon the floor, and eat from the bowl after I have eaten, because you are an apprentice.”

“I will do as you say,” replied Selim Pasha the Proud.

So the Prince of Orient Land made glass for seven years, and slept on a mat upon the floor, and ate from the bowl after his master had eaten. When the seven years were over, his master said to him:

“Selim Pasha, I have taught you all there is to know about glass-making; now make me a bowl of rainbow-colored glass, so large that a man can sit within it; so bright that no one can see through the glass because of its beautiful colors; and so light that the littlest breeze may carry it away.”

“And when I have made the bowl,” said the prince, “shall I then have my reward?”

“When you have made the bowl, we will talk about your reward.”

So Selim Pasha sat up three days and three nights with the glass-blower’s lamps between his knees, and the glass-blower’s rod in his mouth. Finally he made a bowl so large that he himself could hide within it, so bright that no one could see through it because of its beautiful colors and so light that the littlest breeze could carry it away. Then he noticed that the edge of the glass was not smooth, so he dipped his finger in water and ran it around and around.

Suddenly the bowl began to sing, as glasses do when you rub around the edge—and he could understand quite plainly, what it sang! The fairies that lived in the rainbow colors were singing together:

“Over the yellow desert sands,
Prince of all the Orient Lands,
Come, we will bear thee now!
O come away in thy crystal ship
And watch the ancient river slip
Under thy glassy prow!”

Then he knew that in this glass was the magic that he had worked for seven years to learn. Carefully he took the great bowl out of doors. It was very early in the morning, and his master was still asleep, so he wrote “goodbye” and “thank you” on the door, and making no sound, climbed into the bowl that was blazing with color in the sunlight.

No sooner was he settled than a little breeze crept down the street, picked up the beautiful bubble, and wafted it high into the air! He floated over the roofs of the town, and he could smell the breakfasts cooking, which made him very hungry. Then he passed over the green meadows that surrounded the town, and could see cows and oxen below him that looked no bigger than Noah’s-ark animals. At last he came to the desert and by sunset he had reached the river that had flowed around Bulbo’s castle. Then he felt the glass bubble sinking, down, down, down, until it rested like a ship on the river, and he saw the dim green waters gliding under him.

Finally the great bowl drifted ashore. Princess Zarashne was near the river gathering pearls and shells, and when she saw the beautiful crystal sphere, she ran swiftly and called to Bulbo:

“O Bulbo, Bulbo, come and see what the river has brought to you!”

Bulbo came, and looked in amazement at the huge bowl. Fortunately he was a little man and doubled up with age so that he could not see over the edge of the bowl, and of course he could not see through it, because of its beautiful colors. Only Princess Zarashne could look over the edge, and when she saw who was inside, she could not suppress a little scream, though Selim Pasha had made her a sign to be quiet.

“What is it?” asked Bulbo, when he heard her scream.

“I saw a spider,” she replied quickly.

Bulbo called six of his black sprites to take the bowl on their shoulders and carry it to his flower garden. When they had set it down among the roses and pansies and dreamy lotos-flowers, Bulbo went indoors for his supper, but Zarashne stayed outside and looked into the glimmering depths of the bowl.

“O Zarashne, beautiful Zarashne,” whispered Selim Pasha, “I have come to set you free!” And all the evening they whispered together, while the garden went to sleep and the moon rose and the nightingales began to sing. Then Bulbo came to the window with a candle, and called:

“Zarashne! It is time for you to go to bed!”

But Zarashne did not heed him, and at last he came out into the garden.

“Why do you lean over that bowl and look into it all the time, Zarashne? I have called you seven times and you have not answered me!” he said in great anger.

“I see the reflection of my face,” replied Princess Zarashne, and continued to gaze down and whisper to Selim Pasha.

“If you do not come into the house,” cried Bulbo, “I will break the bowl!”

Then Zarashne was frightened and would have followed him, but she could not tear herself from her lover, who was saying:

“Goodnight, goodnight, most beautiful flower of Allah’s garden! Goodnight, my princess!” So she lingered just another moment and then another, till Bulbo was too angry to call her any more.

“You are a vain, vain woman,” he exclaimed, “to gaze so long at your own image, and I will put an end to it.” He tore a big branch from the nearest pomegranate tree, and before she could prevent it, he struck the beautiful bowl with all his might. It flew into a thousand glittering fragments; but in the midst of it stood Selim Pasha the Proud, Prince of Orient Land, his sword bared and shining in the moonlight.

“Treason,” screamed the little sorcerer, “treason!” and fell on his knees before the Prince. Then Bulbo’s servants, his bats and sprites, came running to help him. But when Bulbo had broken the crystal bowl, the rainbow fairies who had been imprisoned in the glass, were all set free, and they took splinters of the glass for swords, and fought a dreadful battle with Bulbo’s sprites, among the poppies and nightshade and the lovely poison berry-bushes. At last the rainbow fairies were victorious, and Selim Pasha sheathed his terrible sword.

“I will not kill you, Bulbo, because you are small and old,” said the magnanimous prince. “But you shall be banished.”

Then the prince gathered up the fragments of his bowl, which looked like common window glass now, for the rainbow fairies had taken all of the beautiful colors with them, and taking his glass-blower’s lamp, he blew the pieces into a perfect sphere all around old Bulbo. Then he drew a great breath—poof! and the globe rose into the air, higher and higher among the clouds, till the winds wafted it thousands of miles away. People who saw it and the little man inside, thought it was the moon. Where it came down was never known, but old Bulbo had vanished forever from Orient Land.

“But now we are in Bulbo’s palace,” said Princess Zarashne, “and your crystal ship is gone; how shall we get across the river?”

“Have no fear,” replied the prince, “the fairies will help us.” Then he called them all together, and they went down to the yellow sands, where they spread their shining wings and made a rainbow bridge over which Selim Pasha the Proud led his princess back to Orient Land.

His people were overjoyed to see him again, for they had long thought him dead. His soldiers had forgotten how to march, for they had been idle so long, and when they tried to blow the trumpets, they found them all rusty and useless. The Lord Chamberlain was discovered hiding under the throne, for he had forgotten to feed the white mouse and the bird of Paradise, who would have starved if the head-cook had not taken pity on them every day. But Selim Pasha pretended not to notice anything that was wrong; he invited everybody to his marriage-feast, for the lovely Princess Zarashne became his queen, and they spread a banquet-table three miles long so even the humblest beggar could partake. There was another table, too, for the animals who had not eaten with a real appetite for seven years, and were awfully hungry now. And at this great banquet Selim Pasha told the story of his adventures. Some believed his tale and others did not, but they all rejoiced to have him back, and he and Queen Zarashne lived together in peace and happiness and ruled their people wisely for the rest of their lives.

THE MERCILESS TSAR

Far, far away, on a strange northern shore by the White Sea, there was once a rich and royal city. The streets were paved with silver, the walls were shining marble, and the church steeples were topped with gold so they gleamed at night in the starlight like big bright moons. The city belonged to a strong and splendid monarch whom people called The Merciless Tsar. He lived in a palace of black marble and ivory with terraces of turquoise mosaic, windows of pure crystal and heavy curtains of silver cloth brocaded with brilliant designs. The Tsar had no pity for the poor and humble; he wrapped himself in a mantle of pride, and made subject kings and princes wait on him at table, and help him into his coat when he went out to drive in his golden chariot behind twelve black horses. If a poor beggar was bold and foolish enough to cry out to him: “Alms, alms, for the love of St. Peter, O most wealthy and wonderful!” he would order the driver to crack his whip over the beggar’s stooping shoulders and drive the unhappy wretch before his chariot for miles and miles. When people cheered him as he passed, he pretended not to hear because he thought he was too great to listen to them.

One day in winter he was driving by the frozen shore of the White Sea, when he saw a ragged young lad fishing through a big hole in the ice.

“Who is that hideous rag-bag catching fish through the ice?” he asked his chancellor who sat on the front seat beside the driver.

“O most wealthy and wonderful, it is the humblest of your citizens, Hanka the Fool,” replied the chancellor.

“Take him by the collar,” ordered the Merciless Tsar, “and plunge him through his hole in the ice. I want to see his face when he comes up again!”

So the chancellor commanded one coachman to descend and dip poor Hanka into the freezing water, and of course the coachman had to obey or else have his head cut off. He grabbed The Fool by his collar and gave him a kick from behind, and Hanka fell screaming through his hole in the thick white ice. The Tsar declared he had never seen anything so funny in all his life.

“Do it again,” he cried, “do it again!” Poor Hanka the Fool was nearly frozen to death before the Tsar grew tired of him and let him go. He had a cold for weeks after, and if his mother had not given him hot tea and put him to bed with warm flat-irons at his feet as soon as he got home, he probably would have died.

A few days later, while the Tsar was sitting in state upon his throne, feeling bored and cross and merciless, a stranger came to the city from the distant North, driving over the frozen sea. He drove all alone in a sleigh with three white horses whose trappings were hung with icicles that tinkled like bells. His hair was long and flaxen, his blue eyes were clear as stars, and he wore a flowing white cape that looked like feathery, newly fallen snow. Of course everyone thought he would stop at the inn near the city gate, but he drove up the highway through all the town, and did not stop till he came to the palace of the Tsar. Then he reined in his horses, stood up in his sleigh and called with all his might.

“Hi, Brother Tsar! Give me a lodging for the night, for I am weary of wayfaring. Give me a bed and a place at thy board, and fodder for my horses, that we may rest!”

The Tsar thought the stranger must be a madman, and sent out a slave to drive him away. But the wayfarer would not go.

“Brother Tsar!” he cried again, “Brother Tsar!” Then the Tsar jumped up from his throne in a rage, snatched a whip from one of his coachmen, and stepped out, in all his pride and glory, upon the terraces of turquoise mosaic.

“Away!” he cried, “Away, or I will have thee bound and tortured!”

“What, thou wilt not grant me even a night’s lodging under thy roof?” exclaimed the wayfarer.

The Tsar cracked his whip.

“Begone, thou mad intruder!” he shouted.

“Yes, I will be gone,” returned the stranger, seizing the reins and jerking up his horses in great anger. “But henceforth there shall be war between thee and me. I will sack thy city and send thee begging, O merciless Tsar, for the affront thou hast offered me today. Know that I am the Strength of the Storm and Ruler of the Great Ice, King Winter!”

The Tsar turned pale when he heard these words, but before he could make any excuses, the chariot with the three white horses and the tinkling icicles had turned about and was flying far, far away to Northward, over the boundless stretches of the Great Ice. So the Merciless Tsar went back into the throne-chamber and said to his chancellor, “Bah! How could King Winter sack my city, anyway? I’d like to see him try!”

That very day it began to snow so hard that the children all through the city could not go to school. The boys went out and shovelled the silver pavements, but soon they had thrown so much snow into the middles of the streets that even the strongest sleigh could not get through any more, and the streets looked like thick, white walls between the side walks. And still it snowed and snowed and snowed. Soon the piles in the street became so high that the boys and even the men could not throw any more snow on top. Then the sidewalks were all snowed up, and the steps of the houses were covered, and the snow rose in walls against the first-story windows.

Round the palace the piles were so great that the turquoise terraces could no longer be shovelled, and they snowed up just like the streets. The Tsar grew very angry when he saw the white walls rising outside his windows, making his rooms all dark and chilly. He sent out his entire household to shovel and sweep; from the cook to the Lord High Chancellor, even the ladies in waiting had to go out with brooms. There were not enough snow shovels, but he made them use coal shovels and dust-pans, and the youngest kitchen-boy kept the window-sills cleared with the pancake turner. But still the snow came down and down, till there was no place to shovel it to, because it was everywhere. It rose to the second stories and blocked all the windows of all the houses. People in the town lived in the garrets, and even the Tsar, fuming with anger, had to move into one of the high towers of his palace. All the stables and barns were snowed up and people had to let the horses live with them in their sitting rooms and put the sleighs into the halls and spare-rooms. But the snow fell faster and faster till it was level with the roofs and threatened to block even the dormer windows. Then they knew that there was only one thing they could do; they had to leave the city.

The Tsar ordered everybody to pack up as many things as the sleighs could carry, food and clothes and cook-pots and the children’s school-books, money and jewels, tool-chests and linen-chests, cups and saucers, bed-clothes and brushes and tooth-powder, and flee from the city before the snow should bury them all alive. He himself headed the procession with ten golden sleighs, each drawn by twelve black horses. Thus the whole population of the rich and royal city climbed out of dormer windows or broken roofs, and drove through the snowstorm toward the South, where the great dark forests were. When they looked back for the last time, the snow had already covered the roofs, till only the golden tops of the church-steeples showed above it, and a few hours later even these disappeared. King Winter had sacked the city of the Merciless Tsar.

Three days and nights the Tsar and his people had to drive, before they came to a place where the snow was light enough so they could shovel it and really reach the solid brown earth underneath. That was in the great forests, where owls hooted, wolves howled, and foxes barked all night, and big bears sat up on their haunches to watch the newcomers with doubt and curiosity. The people took saws and axes, hammers and nails out of their tool-chest and began to cut down big trees and build rude log-cabins to live in.

“Build mine first,” said the Tsar, sitting in his sleigh and jiggling his feet to keep warm.

So they all labored together and made him a wooden palace, with stables for his horses and quarters for the coachmen and a big wooden terrace for his Majesty to walk on after dinner. Then they made their own houses close around, and a wall of brushwood, thorns and vines about the whole settlement, to keep the wolves and bears away.

Thus they lived for months and months in great misery. Soon all their food was eaten up, and the men had to go hunting, but they could not kill enough game to feed such a large population. Then the Tsar became quite terrified, for he knew that he must starve very soon if they found no help. Several times he sent messengers to the distant shore of the White Sea, to find out whether the snow had not melted and his city reappeared; but everyone who came back said no, the city was not to be found; you could not even tell where it had been.

“Oh, will no one tell me how I may recover my city?” cried the Tsar in despair.

“Perhaps the Wise Woman in the forest could tell you,” replied the Lord Chancellor. “She is King Winter’s mother—in fact they say she is the mother of all the kings in the world. And she is said to know everything. But it is hard to find her. You must come to her hut all alone, some cold night under the Northern Lights, and knock three times upon her door, calling, ‘Mother Mir! Mother Mir!’ Then perhaps she will answer you—and perhaps she won’t.”

So the Tsar waited for a cold, bright night, when the Northern Lights played across the starlit sky, and on that night he went out all alone into the deep forest. He wrapped himself in his richest purple cape, set his crown upon his head and put white ermine boots on his feet. As he walked unattended over the frosted snow, under the great pine branches, he looked so royal that the wolves in the forest stood at a respectful distance and did not dare to eat him, though he was all alone. He walked for an hour or more and wondered whether he had gone in the wrong direction to find the Wise Woman’s hut. At last, just when he was ready to give up the search, he saw a tiny square of window-light behind some thick holly-bushes, and following that, he came upon the hut.

It was low and covered with heavy moss, patched with snow and edged with black pine cones. The little window pane was a sheet of ice. (In summer it melted away, but then the Wise Woman would not need a window pane, for the air coming in would not be cold.) The door was made of rough bark and had a big, twisted root tied to it for a knocker. The Tsar picked up the root and let it fall three times: Thump! Thump! Thump!

“Mother Mir!” he called, and his voice sounded very big in the still, black forest, “Mother Mir! Mother Mir!”

At first he thought she was not going to open, but by and by the door swung back, all by itself, and he stooped and went into the little room. There was a fire on the hearth; near it on a pile of leaves sat the brown old woman, counting lily-seeds. She had hands like gnarled wood, and long grey hair that swept the floor. But her eyes were keen and clear and her lips were red.

“A million and three, a million and four,” she counted, dropping the seeds into a bag. “A million and five, and six, and seven, and eight; a million and nine red lily seeds.” Then she tied up one bag, pushed it into a corner, and opened another with seeds of a different kind.

“Good evening to you, Mother Mir,” said the Tsar.

“Good evening, Tsar; have thy people sent thee to me?”

“Sent me!” he cried, drawing himself up so he bumped his crown on the ceiling. “Sent me, indeed! I am the most wealthy and wonderful Tsar and no one could keep me or send me.”

“Except King Winter,” the Wise Woman corrected him.

The Tsar flushed with anger and pride.

“That’s why I came to thee, Mother Mir. What shall I do to recover my buried city?”

“What thou must do, is very simple, O merciless Tsar. But if thou art not willing to do it thou shalt never see thy city again. Thou must repent of thy mercilessness, and become as humble as Hanka the Fool. Thou must give all thy wealth away; and let thy last gift be to a poor wayfarer, to atone for thy sin, that thou didst refuse a wayfarer shelter and food in thy palace.”

The Tsar was puzzled. He had never thought how wicked he was and did not know what it would be like to repent.

“How shall I repent, Mother Mir?”

“Go back to thy people, look into their houses, see how hungry and unhappy they are because of thy mercilessness; perhaps it will make thee repent.”

“But how shall I recover my city by being humble, O most Wise Woman?”

“I have told thee all thou needst to know; now go thy way and let me count my seeds, for Spring will come and I must plant these flowers throughout all the forests of the world and they all are numbered, though people think they grow wild by themselves.” Then she began counting seeds in the new bag: “One, two, three, four, five—”

The Tsar went home through the wintry forest, under the Northern Lights, still wondering what it would feel like to repent. When he returned to his people he did as the Wise Woman had told him—stopped at one house after another, and looked in at the windows.

In the first house he saw a mother who was so ill that she had to lie in bed while the father cooked the dinner and the dog was trying to mind the babies; and the dinner for them all was one woody turnip. The babies were crying, the mother was crying, the dog was crying, and the father said over his cooking-pot:

“It is all the fault of the Merciless Tsar. If he had not been so proud and haughty and turned that strange wayfarer from his door, we would not be starving now!”

The Tsar, watching through the window, felt a shiver run down his spine. “I might send them a little of my wealth,” he thought, “just to stop their crying.” Then he turned away and looked in at the next hut.

Here he saw an old man on his knees praying to St. Peter.

“O dear St. Peter,” he said, “please take me to heaven soon, for I have such awful back-aches that I don’t want to live any more. I got them from being whipped when I begged the Merciless Tsar for a penny!”