The Laughing Prince Part 7

"But you'll come back, won't you?" the Princess begged.

"Yes, I'll come back to-morrow but on one condition: that you don't tell any one about me. I'll come back every day at the same hour but if ever you tell about me then I won't be able to come back any more."

"I'll never tell!" the Princess promised.

Then the youth kissed her tenderly, dipped himself in the milk, went back into his feather shirt, and flew off as a pigeon.

The next day he came again and the next and the next and the Princess fell so madly in love with him that all day long and all night long, too, she thought of nothing else. She no longer touched her embroidery but day after day sat idle in the tower-room just awaiting the hour of his arrival. And every day it seemed to the King and the Queen and all the people about the Court that the Princess was becoming more and more beautiful. Her cheeks kept growing pinker, her eyes brighter, her lovely hair more golden.

"I must say sitting at that foolish embroidery agrees with her," the King said.

"No, it isn't that," the Queen told him. "It's the big bowl of milk she drinks every afternoon. You know milk is very good for the complexion."

"Milk indeed!" murmured the Princess to herself, and she blushed rosier than ever at thought of her wonderful secret.

But a princess can't keep growing more and more beautiful without everybody in the world hearing about it. The neighboring kings soon began to feel angry and suspicious.

"What ails this Princess?" they asked among themselves. "Isn't one of our sons good enough for her? Is she waiting for the King of Persia to come as a suitor or what? Let us stand together on our rights and demand to know why she won't consider one of our sons!"

So they sent envoys to the Princess's father and he saw at once that the matter had become serious.

"My dear," he said to the Princess, "your mother and I have humored you long enough. It is high time that you had a husband and I insist that you allow the sons of neighboring kings to be presented to you next week."

"I won't do it!" the Princess declared. "I'm not interested in the sons of the neighboring kings and that's all there is about it!"

Her father looked at her severely.

"Is that the way for a princess to talk? Persist in this foolishness and you may embroil your country in war!"

"I don't care!" the Princess cried, bursting into tears. "I can't marry any of them, so why let them be presented?"

"Why can't you marry any of them?"

"I just can't!" the Princess insisted.

At first, in spite of the pleadings of both parents, she would tell them no more, but her mother kept questioning her until at last in self-defense the Princess confessed that she had a true love who came to her in the tower every afternoon in the form of a pigeon.

"He's a prince," she told them, "the son of a distant king. At present he is under an enchantment that turns him into a pigeon. When the enchantment is broken he is coming as a prince to marry me."

"My poor child!" the Queen cried. "Think no more about this Pigeon Prince! The enchantment may last a hundred years and then where will you be!"

"But he is my love!" the Princess declared, "and if I can't have him I won't have any one!"

When the King found that nothing they could say would move her from this resolution, he sighed and murmured:

"Very well, my dear. If it must be so, it must be. This afternoon when your lover comes, bring him down to me that I may talk to him."

But that afternoon the Pigeon did not come. Nor the next afternoon either, nor the next, and then too late the Princess remembered his warning that if she told about him he could never come back.

So now she sat in the tower-room idle and heartbroken, reproaching herself that she had betrayed her lover and praying G.o.d to forgive her and send him back to her. And the roses faded from her cheeks and her eyes grew dull and the people about the Court began wondering why they had ever thought her the most beautiful princess in the world.

At last she went to the King, her father, and said:

"As my love can no longer come back to me because I forgot my promise and betrayed him, I must go out into the world and hunt him. Unless I find him life will not be worth the living. So do not oppose me, father, but help me. Have three pairs of iron shoes made for me and three iron staffs. I will wander over the wide world until these are worn out and then, if by that time I have not found him, I will come home to you."

So the King had three pairs of iron shoes made for the Princess and three iron staffs and she set forth on her quest. She traveled through towns and cities and many kingdoms, over rough mountains and desert places, looking everywhere for her enchanted love. But nowhere could she find any trace of him.

At the end of the first year she had worn out the first pair of iron shoes and the first iron staff. At the end of the second year she had worn out the second pair of iron shoes and the second iron staff. At the end of the third year, when she had worn out the third pair of iron shoes and the third staff, she returned to her father's palace looking thin and worn and sad.

"My poor child," the King said, "I hope now you realize that the Pigeon Prince is gone forever. Think no more about him. Go back to your embroidery and when the roses begin blooming in your cheeks again we'll find some young prince for you who isn't enchanted."

But the Princess shook her head.

"Let me try one thing more, father," she begged, "and then if I don't find my love I'll do as you say."

The King agreed to this.

"Well, then," the Princess said, "build a public bath-house and have the heralds proclaim that the King's daughter will sit at the entrance and will allow any one to bathe free of charge who will tell her the story of the strangest thing he has ever heard or seen."

So the King built the bath-house and sent out his heralds far and wide.

Men and women from all over the world came and bathed and told the Princess stories of this marvel and that, but never, alas, a word of an enchanted pigeon.

The days went by and the Princess grew more and more discouraged.

"Isn't it sad," the courtiers began whispering, "how the Princess has lost her looks! Do you suppose she ever was really beautiful or did we just imagine it?"

And the neighboring kings when they heard this remarked softly among themselves:

"It's just as well we didn't hurry one of our sons into a marriage with this young woman!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Princess Kissed Its Coral Beak_]

Now there was a poor widow who lived near the bath-house. She had a daughter, a pretty young girl, who used to sit at the window and watch the Princess as people came and told her their stories.

"Mother," the girl said one day, "every one in the world goes to the bath-house and I want to go, too!"

"Nonsense!" the mother said. "What story could you tell the Princess?"

"But everybody else goes and I don't see why I can't!"

"Well, my dear," the mother promised, "you may just as soon as you see or hear something strange. Talk no more about it now but go, fetch me a pitcher of water from the town well."

The girl obediently took an empty pitcher and went to the town well.

Just as she had filled the pitcher she heard some one say:

"Mercy me, I fear I'll be late!"

She turned around and what do you think she saw? A rooster in wooden shoes with a basket under his wing!