The Little Lame Prince Part 7

"He is dead," said the magpie with a croak.

No, there was not the least use in being angry with him now. On the contrary, the Prince felt almost sorry for him.

"What shall we do now?" asked the magpie. "There's nothing much more to be done with his Majesty, except a funeral. Suppose we float up again at a safe distance and see it all. It will be such fun. There will be a great row in the city and I wonder who we shall have in his place?"

"What will be fun?"

"A Revolution."

As soon as the Cathedral bell began to toll, and the minute guns to fire, announcing to the Kingdom that it was without a king, the people gathered in crowds. The murmur now and then rose into a shout, and the shout into a roar. When Prince Dolor, quietly floating in the upper air, caught the sound of their different and opposite cries, it seemed to him as if the whole city had gone mad together.

"Long live the King!" "The King is dead--down with the King!" "Down with the crown and the King too!" "Hurrah for the Republic!" "Hurrah for no government at all."

Such were the shouts which came up to him and then began, oh! what a scene! The country was in a revolution. Soldiers were shooting down people by hundreds in the streets, scaffolds were being erected, heads dropping off, houses burned, and women and children murdered.

Prince Dolor saw it all. Things happened so fast after one another that he nearly lost his senses.

"Oh, let me go home," he cried at last, stopping his ears and shutting his eyes, "only let me go home!" for even his lonely tower and its dreariness and silence, was absolute paradise after this.

Prince Dolor fell into a kind of swoon and when he awoke he found himself in his own room.

CHAPTER VIII.

Next morning when Prince Dolor awoke he perceived that his room was empty.

Very uncomfortable he felt, of course; and just a little frightened.

Especially when he began to call again and again, but n.o.body answered.

"Nurse--dear nurse--please come back!" he called out. "Come back, and I will be the best boy in all the land."

And when she did not come back, and nothing but silence answered his lamentable call, he very nearly began to cry.

"This won't do," he said at last, das.h.i.+ng the tears from his eyes. "It's just like a baby, and I'm a big boy--shall be a man some day. What has happened, I wonder? I'll go and see."

He sprang out of bed and crawled from room to room on his knees.

"What in the world am I to do?" thought he, and sat down in the middle of the floor, half inclined to believe that it would be better to give up entirely, lay himself down and die.

This feeling, however, did not last long. He jumped up and looked out of the window. No help there. At first he only saw the broad bleak suns.h.i.+ny plain. But, by-and-by, in the mud around the base of the tower he saw clearly the marks of horses' feet, and just in the spot where the deaf mute always tied his great black charger, there lay the remains of a bundle of hay.

"Yes, that's it. He has come and gone, taking nurse with him. Poor nurse! how glad she must have been to go!"

That was Prince Dolor's first thought. His second was one of indignation at her cruelty.

He decided that it would be easier to die here alone than out in the world, among the terrible doings which he had just beheld.

The deaf mute had come--contrived somehow to make the nurse understand that the king was dead, and that she need have no fear in going back to the capital.

"I hope she'll enjoy it," said the Prince.

And then a kind of remorse smote him for feeling so bitterly towards her, after all the years she had taken care of him--grudgingly, perhaps, still, she had taken care of him.

For the second time he tried to dress himself, and then to do everything he could for himself--even to sweeping the hearth and putting on more coals.

He then thought of his G.o.dmother. Not of calling her or asking her to help him--she had evidently left him to help himself, and he was determined to try his best to do it, being a very proud and independent boy--but he remembered her tenderly.

After his first despair, he was comfortable and happy in his solitude, but when it was time to go to bed, he was very lonely, even his little lark was silent and as for his traveling cloak, either he never thought about it, or else it had been spirited away--for he made no use of it, nor attempted to do so.

On the sixth day, Prince Dolor had a strange contented look in his face.

Get out of the tower he could not; the ladder the deaf mute used was always carried away again and his food was nearly gone. So he made up his mind to die. Not that he wished to die; on the contrary, there was a great deal that he wished to live to do. Dying did not seem so very dreadful; not even to lie quietly like his uncle, whom he had entirely forgiven now.

"Suppose I had grown to be a man, and had had work to do, and people to care for, and was so useful and busy that they liked me, and perhaps even forgot that I was lame. Then, it would have been nice to have lived, I think," and tears came into the little fellow's eyes. Then he heard a trumpet, one of the great silver trumpets so admired in Nomansland. Not pleasant music, but very bold and grand.

The poor condemned woman had not been such a wicked woman after all. As soon as she heard of the death of the King, she persuaded the deaf-mute to take her away with him, and they galloped like the wind from city to city, spreading everywhere the news that Prince Dolor's death and burial had been an invention concocted by his wicked uncle--that he was alive and well, and the n.o.blest young Prince that ever was born.

It was a bold stroke, but it succeeded. People jumped at the idea of this Prince, who was the son of their late good King and Queen.

"Hurrah for Prince Dolor! Let him be our king!" rang from end to end of the kingdom. They were determined to have him reign over them.

Accordingly no sooner was the late king laid in his grave than they p.r.o.nounced him a usurper; turned all his family out of the palace, and left it empty for the reception of the new sovereign, whom they went to fetch with great rejoicing.

They hailed him with delight, as prince and king and went down on their knees before him, offering the crown to him.

"Yes," he said, "if you desire it, I will be your king. And I will do my best to make my people happy."

"Oh!" said he, "if before I go, I could only see my dear G.o.dmother." He gazed sadly up to the skylight, whence there came pouring a stream of sunrays like a bridge between heaven and earth. Sliding down it, came the little woman in grey.

He held out his arms in eager delight.

"Oh, G.o.dmother, you have not forsaken me!"

"Not at all my son. You may not have seen me, but I have seen you many a time."

"How?"

"Oh, never mind. I can turn into anything I please you know."

"A lark, for instance," cried Prince Dolor.

"Or a Magpie," answered she with a capital imitation of Mag's croaky voice.

"You will not leave me now that I am king? Otherwise I had rather not be a king at all," said he.

The little old woman laughed gaily. "Forsake you? That is impossible.

But now I must go. Good-bye! Open the window and out I fly."