The Laughing Prince Part 5

One day as he wandered about he came upon a vine that was laden with great cl.u.s.ters of luscious red grapes. He fell upon them ravenously and ate bunch after bunch. Suddenly he felt something in his hair and lifting his hands he found that horns had grown out all over his head.

"Fine grapes these are!" he exclaimed, "to bring out horns on a person's head!"

However, he was so hungry that he kept on eating until his head was one ma.s.s of horns.

The next day he found a vine that had cl.u.s.ters of white grapes. He began eating the white grapes and he hadn't finished a bunch before the horns all fell off his head.

"Ha!" he said. "The red grapes put horns on and the white grapes take them off! That's a trick worth knowing!"

He took some reeds and fas.h.i.+oned two baskets one of which he filled with red grapes and the other with white grapes. Then staining his face with the dark juice of a leaf until he looked brown and sunburned like a countryman, he went back to Peerless Beauty's castle. There he marched up and down below the Peerless one's window crying his wares like a huckster:

"Sweet grapes for sale! Who wants my fresh sweet grapes!"

Now it was not the season for grapes, so Peerless Beauty when she heard the cry was surprised and said to her serving maid:

"Go quickly and buy me some grapes from that huckster and mind you don't eat one yourself!"

The serving maid hurried out to Danilo and he sold her some of the red grapes. As she carried them in, she couldn't resist the temptation of slipping a few into her mouth. Instantly some horns grew out on her head.

"That's to punish me for disobeying my mistress!" the poor girl cried.

"Oh, dear, what shall I do?"

She was afraid to show herself to Peerless Beauty, so she pretended she was taken sick and she went to bed and pulled the sheet over her head and sent in the grapes by another serving maid.

Peerless Beauty ate them all before she discovered their frightful property. Then there was a great to-do, and cries of anger and of fright, and a quick sending out of the guards to find the huckster. But the huckster had disappeared.

What could Peerless Beauty do now? She tried to pull the horns out but they wouldn't come. She tried to cut them off but they resisted the edge of the sharpest knife. She was too proud to show herself with horns, so she swathed her head with jewels and ribbons and pretended she was wearing an elaborate head-dress.

Then she sent heralds through the land offering a huge reward to any one who could cure her serving maid of some strange horns that had grown out on her head. You see she thought if she could get hold of some one who would cure the maid, then she could make him cure her, too.

Well, doctors and quacks and all sorts of people came and tried every kind of remedy, but all in vain. The horns stayed firmly rooted.

A whole week went by and when the last of the quacks had come and gone, Danilo, disguised as an old physician, presented himself and craved audience with the Peerless one. He carried two small jars in his hands one of which was filled with a conserve made from the white grapes and the other with a conserve made from the red grapes.

Peerless Beauty, her horns swathed in silk and gleaming with jewels, received him coldly.

"Are you one more quack?" she asked.

"Not a quack," he said, bowing low, "but a man who has happened upon a strange secret of nature. I can cure your serving maid of her horns provided she confess to me all her misdeeds and hand over to me anything she has that does not belong to her."

Peerless Beauty had him shown to the room where the serving maid lay in bed. The poor frightened girl at once confessed that she had stolen a few of her mistress's grapes and eaten them. Danilo spoke kindly to her, gave her some of the white grape conserve, and as soon as she had tasted it the horns of course dropped off.

Thereupon Peerless Beauty led Danilo to her own chamber, ordered all her people out, and then acknowledged that she, too, was suffering from horns.

"I am sure I can cure you," Danilo told her, "provided you confess to me all your misdeeds and hand over to me whatever you have that belongs to some one else."

"I cheated a foolish young man out of five bags of gold," Peerless Beauty said. "Here they are in this chest. Take them."

Danilo opened the chest and took out his own five bags of gold.

"Is that all?" he asked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Magic Pitcher_]

"Yes, that is all."

Danilo gave her some of the red grape conserve and of course, instead of the horns already on her head falling off, more grew on.

"You're not telling me the truth," Danilo said, "and I can't cure you.

There's no use my treating you further."

He turned to go and Peerless Beauty, in great fright, begged him to stay.

"I do remember another misdeed," she confessed. "I took by trickery a magic pitcher from the same foolish young man."

She gave Danilo the pitcher and he hid it in his s.h.i.+rt.

"Is that all?"

"Yes, that is all."

Danilo gave her some more of the red grape conserve and, of course, more horns grew out on her head. Then he pretended to get angry.

"How can you expect to be cured when you don't tell me the truth? I told you I could not cure you unless you confessed all!"

Peerless Beauty wanted much to keep the magic cap but when the strange physician thundered and scowled and threatened again to leave her, more horned than ever, she acknowledged that she had taken the cap, too, and handed it over.

This time Danilo gave her some of the white grape conserve and as soon as she had eaten it all the horns fell off and her head s.h.i.+mmered and shone as of old with her beautiful hair.

Then Danilo told her who he was and at once the maiden sought to ensnare him again with her wiles.

"What a wonderful man you are, Danilo! I could love you now if you loved me, but I know of course that you will never love me again after the cruel way I have treated you!"

"But I do love you!" Danilo cried. "I do love you!"

"No, you don't!" she said, and she pretended to weep. "If you did love me, you'd tell me where you found those red grapes and what this magic conserve is made of. But of course you don't love me enough to tell me."

Because she looked more beautiful than ever with the tears on her lovely cheeks, Danilo was about to tell her what she wanted to know when he remembered the old woman's warning. That was enough. He hardened his heart and declared:

"No! I'll never tell you! Do you hear me: I'll never tell you!"

She wept and implored him and used all her wiles, but Danilo remembering the past was firm. And presently he had the reward that a man always has when he's firm, for as soon as it was evident that she could no longer befool him, the evil enchantment that bound her broke with a snap and Peerless Beauty became a human maiden as gentle and sweet and loving as she was beautiful.

She knelt at Danilo's feet and humbly begged his pardon and promised, if he would still marry her, to make him the most dutiful wife in the world.

So Danilo married Peerless Beauty and with the servants of the magic pitcher transported her and her castle and her riches together with the old woman who had befriended them both to his own native village. There he still lives happy and prosperous.

His uncle and all the old men in the village take credit to themselves for the success of his adventures.