The Laughing Prince Part 24

The Warrior Princess looked deep into his eyes and knew that he was speaking truth. Her heart was touched with compa.s.sion at the wrong he had suffered from his brothers, but she hid her feelings and questioned him further.

"Then it was you," she said, "who really took from me my glorious Nightingale Gisar?"

"Yes, Princess, it was. I crept past the lion and the wolf and the tiger just after midnight while they slept. I blew out the four candles at the head of your bed and lighted those at the foot. The golden cage of the Nightingale was hanging from a golden chain. Before I unfastened it I looked at you once, as you lay sleeping, and dared not look a second time."

"Why not?" the Princess asked.

"Because, O Flower o' the World, you were so beautiful that I feared, were I to look again, I should forget the Nightingale Gisar and cry out in ecstacy."

Then the compa.s.sion in the Princess's heart changed to love and she knew for a certainty that this was the man she was fated to wed.

She clapped her hands and when the guards came in she said to them:

"Call my warriors together that I may show them the Sultan's Youngest Son and the man who stole from me my glorious Nightingale Gisar and whom I am fated to wed."

So the warriors came in until they crowded the tent to its utmost. Then the Princess stood up and took the Sultan's Youngest Son by the hand and presented him to the warriors and told them of his great bravery and courage and of all the perils he had endured in order to get the Nightingale Gisar for his father's mosque.

"He came to me now as a beggar," she said, "but I knew him at once for truth was in his mouth and courage in his eye. Behold, O warriors, your future lord!"

Then the warriors waved their swords and cried:

"Long live the Flower o' the World! Long live the Sultan's Youngest Son!"

All the Princess's army when they heard the news raised such a mighty shout that the people in the Sultan's city heard and were filled with dread not knowing what it meant. But soon they knew and then they, too, went mad with joy that what had threatened to be a war was turning to a wedding!

The Flower o' the World and her chief warriors and with them the Youngest Prince rode slowly to the city. The Prince was now dressed as befitted his rank and the Sultan when he saw him recognized him at once.

"Allah be praised!" he cried, "my Youngest Son lives!"

Then they told him all--how it was this Prince and not the older brothers who had found the Nightingale Gisar and how the older brothers had robbed him of his prize and beaten him insensible.

When the Sultan heard how wicked his older sons had been his grief for their death was a.s.suaged.

"Allah be praised," he said, "that I have at least one son who is worthy!"

After the betrothal ceremony the Sultan and the Youngest Prince went to the mosque to pray. While they prayed the Nightingale sang so gloriously that it seemed to them they were no longer on earth but in Paradise.

When their prayers were finished and they were pa.s.sing out, the Dervish raised his sing-song voice and said:

"Now indeed is the Sultan's Mosque the most beautiful Mosque in the World for the Nightingale Gisar sings beside the Fountain!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE GIRL IN THE CHEST

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_The Story of the Third Sister Who Was Brave and Good_

THE GIRL IN THE CHEST

There was once a horrible Vampire who took the form of a handsome young man and went to the house of an old woman who had three daughters and pretended he wanted to marry the oldest.

"I live far from here," the Vampire said. "I own my own farm and am well-to-do and in marrying me your daughter would get a desirable husband. Indeed, I am so well off that I don't have to ask any dowry."

Now the old woman was so poor that she couldn't have given a penny of dowry. That was the only reason why all three of her daughters hadn't long ago been married to youths of their own village. So when the stranger said he would require no dowry, the old woman whispered to her oldest daughter:

"He seems to be all right. Perhaps you had better take him."

The poor girl accepted her mother's advice and that afternoon started off with the Vampire who said he would lead her home and marry her.

They walked a great distance and as evening came on they reached a wild ghostly spot which frightened the girl half to death.

"This way, my dear," the Vampire said, pus.h.i.+ng her into an opening in the earth. "We take this underground pa.s.sage and soon we'll be home."

The pa.s.sage led to a sort of cave which really was the Vampire's home.

"What an awful place!" the poor girl cried in terror. "Let me out!"

"Let you out, indeed!" the Vampire sneered, taking his own horrible shape and laughing cruelly. "Here you are and here you stay and if you don't do everything I tell you, I'll soon finish you! Here now, drink this."

He offered the poor girl a pitcher and when she saw what was in it she nearly fainted with horror.

"No!" she cried. "I won't! I won't!"

"If you don't drink this," the Vampire said, darkly, "then I'll drink you!"

And with that he killed her with no more feeling than if she were a fly.

Then in a short time he went back to the old woman and said:

"Dear mother, my poor wife is ill and she begs that you send her your second daughter to nurse her. She asks for her sister night and day and I fear she will die unless she sees her."

When the poor old mother heard this, she begged the second daughter to go at once with the young man and nurse her sick sister.

Well, the same thing happened to the second sister and in no time at all the Vampire had killed her, too, to satisfy his awful thirst.

Then he returned again to the old mother and this time he pretended that both sisters were sick and were trying for the third sister to come and nurse them. So the poor old woman sent her Youngest Daughter away with the Vampire.

The Youngest Sister when she found out the truth about the horrid Vampire didn't sit down and weep helplessly as the others had done and wait for the Vampire to kill her, but she prayed G.o.d's help and then tried to find some way of escape.

There were doors in the cave which the Vampire told her were doors to closets she must not enter. When the Vampire was out she opened these doors and found that they all led into long underground pa.s.sages.