The Other Side of the Sun Part 8

"The flowers have learned the way to grow in the Prince's garden," they were shouting; "and the Prince will not be executed, after all!"

Princess Gentianella danced for joy, in and out of the Prince's bright flower-beds. "The Prince will not be executed, after all," she said, too.

"And he will be able to marry Anemone, the Witch's beautiful daughter,"

added the wymp.

All the laughter died out of Princess Gentianella's face, and she looked up at the wymp in a very woe-begone manner indeed.

"Oh," she said piteously, "I never thought of that. I--I had quite forgotten that he was somebody else's Prince."

The wymp fairly wimpled when he saw the poor little Princess looking so unhappy. "Don't you fret about that, my little dear," he cried. "Do you suppose the Witch's daughter wants anybody else's Prince, either?"

Princess Gentianella clapped her hands with delight. "Of course she doesn't!" she cried. "But perhaps she does not know he is somebody else's Prince."

"Then go and tell her so," suggested the wymp; and before she had time to thank him for his advice he had gone off once more to the back of the sun.

The little Princess did not stop to think about it, but just ran as fast as she could towards the invisible kingdom of Prince Amaryllis. It might seem a little difficult to run towards a place that did not appear to be there, but to any one who was in as great a hurry as the little Princess a thing like that was of very small consequence. So she ran and she ran and she ran, until the Prince's kingdom was really obliged to stop being invisible, for in all the hundred years that it had been bewitched no one had ever tried so hard to see it before. Besides, it would have been most impolite of anybody's kingdom to go on pretending that it was not there, when the Princess was so determined to pretend that it was; so in the end she suddenly found herself in the middle of a country that was as full of trees and rivers and people and houses as any other country, and the particular part of it in which she found herself was a nice green field full of woolly sheep.

"What a charming kingdom!" exclaimed Princess Gentianella. "How green the trees are, and how fresh everything looks! Why, there is not a speck of dust to be seen."

"Of course there isn't," answered a jolly little lamb, who was trying, as lambs will, to behave as though he had only two legs instead of four.

"Dust, indeed! When a kingdom has not been seen for a hundred years, naturally it keeps fresher than a kingdom that any one can stare at.

Nothing fades a kingdom like staring at it, you know. However, all this will soon be altered, for I hear that the Prince has made the flowers grow in his garden; so all he has to do now is to marry the Witch's daughter, and then we shall be disenchanted at last."

"Oh no, you won't!" said Princess Gentianella, shaking her finger at him wisely.

"Why not?" asked the lamb, standing still for the first time in his life.

"Because the Prince is _not_ going to marry the Witch's daughter,"

answered Princess Gentianella; and she ran on before the lamb had time to recover from his astonishment.

Down a curly white road ran the little Princess, between two of the greenest hedges she had ever seen, until she came to a stile. Now, she had never climbed a stile in her life, so of course she did not know what to do next. However, there stood the stile waiting to be climbed, and there stood the Princess feeling very much inclined to cry, when it happened most fortunately that an old woodcutter came strolling along.

He was a particularly cross-looking woodcutter, but the Princess was in far too great a hurry to notice that.

"If you please," she said as politely as she could, "will you lift me over this great, big, high stile?"

The woodcutter at once did as he was asked, and then was so surprised at his own kindness that he stood and stared at the little Princess.

"Well, I never!" he exclaimed. "That's the first time in my life I ever did anything to please anybody. Are you a witch?"

"No, but I am looking for one," said Princess Gentianella. "Can you tell me where she is?"

"If you mean the one whose daughter is going to marry the Prince, I think I can," replied the woodcutter, who thought he might as well go on being kind, now that he had once begun.

"That is certainly not the witch I mean," answered the Princess, promptly, "for the Prince is _not_ going to marry any witch's daughter!"

And she ran on faster than ever.

Presently she came to a brook that was covered with ice.

"Dear me!" cried Princess Gentianella. "It was springtime round the corner, and here have I tumbled into the middle of winter!"

A fish popped his head through the ice, and laughed from ear to ear,--two things that he could do quite easily, for he happened to be a skate. "The seasons have been mixed up in this country ever since we were bewitched, a hundred years ago," he said. "It is no use being particular about the time of year when there is no one to see what kind of weather you are having. If you stand on tiptoe you will see summer going on in the next field."

"It must be very difficult to know what clothes to put on, when you take a walk in this country," remarked the Princess. "But, of course, it doesn't matter what you do wear when there is no one to look at you!"

"Well, well," said the skate, "things will soon be altered, and the seasons will have to right themselves again, for I am told that Prince Amaryllis is going to marry the Witch's daughter, and so the country will be disenchanted at last."

"Rubbish!" laughed the little Princess, knowingly. "Don't you believe everything you are told! The Prince is going to do nothing of the sort!"

Then she ran away from the skate and the frozen brook, and she ran right out of winter into the middle of summer; and she might have gone on running until she reached the middle of autumn too, if she had not been stopped by an enormous sea-serpent who was lying stretched across the road. When the sea-serpent saw the Princess, of course he flapped his fifty-five fins at her, and lashed his tail about furiously, and growled in a hoa.r.s.e, fishy voice. But the Princess mistook his fury for politeness. When one has lived in a garden with a wall round it and never seen a sea-serpent in one's life, one is apt to make these mistakes.

"I am very pleased to meet you," she said, with her most charming smile; "I have often wanted to meet a dragon."

"She calls me a dragon!" groaned the sea-serpent, foaming like the sea in a tempest; "and I am connected with the very best family of sea-serpents! What will people say next?"

"I am very sorry," said the Princess, humbly. "You see, I thought, as you were not in the sea--"

"I was expecting that," interrupted the sea-serpent, bitterly. "No one ever will believe in me unless I stop in the sea. It is very depressing!"

"I am sure I am very glad you have come out of the sea," said the Princess, politely, "because it has given me the pleasure of meeting you. But does it not make you very thirsty to lie in this hot dusty road?"

"Not nearly so thirsty as stopping in the sea and having nothing but salt water to drink," answered the sea-serpent. "People do not realise what a thirsty life a sea-serpent has to lead. If they did," he added severely, "they would not stand in front of him and ask so many questions!"

The Princess laughed merrily. "I do not want to stand here at all," she explained; "but unless you move your tail a little on one side, I really cannot get past."

"If you do get past," growled the sea-serpent, "you will fall into the Witch's hands."

"That is exactly where I want to fall!" cried Princess Gentianella; "only you must move your tail a little bit more than that, or else I am afraid I shall step on it."

It was such a novelty for the sea-serpent to find some one who was not frightened of him, that he had not the heart to tell her that he was just going to eat her up. So he moved his tail out of the way, and Princess Gentianella blew a kiss to him from the tips of her little pink fingers and ran on as before.

The next person she met was an old woman, who was picking thistles in a field.

"I wonder why you are doing that!" said the Princess, opening her big blue eyes.

"I am making an experiment, to see if I can find any one with so brave a heart that the thistles will not be able to hurt it," answered the old woman, mysteriously.

"But does it not scratch your fingers to gather those large p.r.i.c.kly thistles?" asked the little Princess.

"Perhaps it does," the old woman said shortly; "but who do you suppose is going to gather them for me?"

She seemed rather cross, but the Princess supposed it was because she had p.r.i.c.ked her fingers so much.

"Well, I am in a most tremendous hurry, but I think I can stop and help you," she answered; and down she dropped on her knees and began to pick thistles as fast as she could. And when the thistles saw what soft pink fingers were going to take hold of them, they at once bent back all their p.r.i.c.kles and allowed the Princess to gather as many as she pleased without giving her so much as a scratch. When she had filled the old woman's ap.r.o.n for her, she began to run off at full speed, to make up for lost time. But the old woman called her back.

"Stop!" she cried. "Where are you going?"

"I am going to find the Witch's daughter," answered Princess Gentianella, looking back impatiently.