Fairyland can produce nothing so wonderful as the facility with which sundry mortals can extend their faces. To smile widely is the fashion with us nowadays, and it is very wonderful indeed to note the various methods of its accomplishment. If the human face be a mask (and who shall say it is not?) then what maskers promenade our streets with their masks set smiling—as one would set a watch or a clock! Bowing and smirking is the latest humbug, and even the mere soulless puppets, born of men’s brains, must smack of it, else they are voted untrue to life and nature.
There was a set smile on the ugly face of Dusk, the dwarf, as he bowed to Silverhaze and our hero; but the sprite had not been educated in a mortal school. He lacked polish. Malignity shone in his eyes and in every corner of his wicked mouth.
“Don’t move, I pray,” he said slowly; “my slaves are entirely at your service. Why don’t you summon them to do your bidding? Ho, ho, ho!” And his mocking laugh rang through the vaulted passages like a bugle-call.
Poor Silverhaze began to tremble, and clung to the Nugget for support, while the youth in his turn tried his utmost to calm her fears.
The dwarf eyed them with a sinister look. “Very charming for my fay,” he ejaculated, rubbing his bony hands together. “Very loving and tender, oh, my doves. What tender morsels you’ll make for mince-pies! My cook, Pancake Parecheese, will be delighted with you. He, he, hi!” He turned about as he spoke, and clapped his hands together as a signal. Almost immediately the room became filled with armed monsters.
“Ha!” cried Dusk in mocking sarcasm. “You break into my house, kill my servants, and rob me of my coveted prize. Slaves, take this man away and boil him down.”
It was a dreadful order. To cook a man like a leg of mutton or a shin of beef! Good heavens! it was awful. But the dwarf, powerful as he was, little dreamed of the amazing influence of the ram’s horn. By its potent force our hero set the whole army of monsters by the ears, who fell foul of and slew each other. Not satisfied with this, they set fire to the mansion, where, amidst the conflagration, those who were not slain perished in the flames.
At the beginning of the fray our hero seized the dwarf, and transforming him into a donkey, placed the King’s daughter on his back, and retraced his steps to Mother Dot’s hut on the cliff. The dame came out at their approach, and at the sight of her the ass began to bray loudly.
“Thou wicked sprite!” she cried, shaking her staff over him. “Thou camest to me in sore need, and I gave thee power. How hast thou used my gift? Why, to evil. Beast thou art, and a beast thou shalt remain for evermore.”
The donkey drew back his long ears, and kicked spitefully, for fully five minutes, at the decree. Meanwhile, Mother Dot took the young Princess and her companion into the hut, and placed refreshment before them. It was amusing to see the attention the Nugget bestowed upon the fair young creature by his side, and to note the tell-tale blushes which ever and anon suffused her face as their eyes or their hands chanced to meet. Even the old crone, who wasn’t looking their way, nodded her ancient head, muttered, and chuckled in a wise way, as if she had known it all beforehand.
“AT THE SIGHT OF HER THE ASS BEGAN TO BRAY LOUDLY.”
The meal ended, Silverhaze approached the dame and whispered, “Dear Mother Dot, who is this gallant youth who has delivered me from the wicked dwarf?”
“Ah, he will tell you soon, my pearl,” she answered with a leer; “meantime, he’s called the Knight of the Ram’s Horn.”
Presently the Nugget drew near the old woman, and plucking her by the sleeve, said, “Dame, canst tell what I am to do with this gentle maiden?”
“Yes, my son. Thou hast conquered the evil Dusk, therefore to thee shall be the proud service of restoring Princess Silverhaze to her home.”
“Where is her home, good dame?”
“Thou hast seen it,” answered the old woman. “That rock on the plain is the palace of King Golden Cloud. This damsel is the King’s only child.”
“Whew!” cried Samson, taking off his hat. “Why, mother, the place is a wretched ruin.”
“So it is, and there stands the spoiler,” replied the crone, pointing to the ass. “Dusk the dwarf coveted the Pearl of Golden Cloud for his wife, and when she denied him, the base wretch stole her from thence, and to hide the deed, he committed a greater one, as people generally do who begin to do evil. By the dwarf’s enchantments, the King, Queen, ladies, nobles, courtiers, and every soul within the palace were transformed into the likeness of stone images. The guards who attempted to rescue the King’s daughter were changed into a horde of wild animals on the spot, while the matchless garden, the wonder and beauty of a kingdom, became a wide waste.”
“What a wicked monster!” cried our hero indignantly.
“Ah! my son; but thanks to thy strong back and unfaltering courage the spell is broken, and his power is gone for ever. If thou hadst failed with the burden I gave thee, then would Silverhaze be still confined within the crystal globe.”
“I am very glad to have rescued the lady,” he replied; “but, mother, I could not have accomplished it without your aid. Even now I am at a loss how to proceed.”
The old dame looked at him, and began to chuckle.
“Marry! art not thou the Knight of the Ram’s Horn? Ha! ha! hi! hi!”
So tickled did she appear at this somewhat ambiguous question that she laughed till the building trembled to its foundation, and she no sooner recovered from one guffaw than she went off into another, until it ended in a severe fit of coughing.
Samson the Nugget was rather surprised at the old lady’s merriment. There really seemed nothing to laugh at. How was he to find the way to that subterraneous passage by which he had come? And, moreover, supposing he found it, how was he to convey the Princess up the steep sides of the black chasm?
The whole thing had been feasible enough if the ram’s horn had still remained in his possession, but the relic had mysteriously gone from him the moment he re-entered the old woman’s hut.
After many futile attempts at choking, Mother Dot recovered sufficiently to say,—
“Sir Knight, be not troubled concerning the maiden. I will find means to send ye both to Golden Cloud.”
“But, dame, I repeat the place is a ruin.”
“Tut! To thee it seemeth so,” she answered shortly. “I will undo the spell cast upon it, and thou shalt see it in all its former magnificence. The statues shall rouse them from their long sleep and give ye welcome. I have said it.”
The dame hobbled to a pretty cage, and took therefrom a beautiful ring-dove which perched tamely on her finger and began to coo. Bending her mouth towards its beak she whispered a few words, and the dove flew away and was lost to sight in a moment.
“Come, Sir Knight; come, Princess. You must now set forth on your journey to Golden Cloud,” continued Mother Dot. “We will all mount upon the back of the ass, who shall bear us to Moonshine, after which you will have no difficulty in reaching your destination.”
The miserable donkey gave forth a loud bray of dissent at the undue weight placed upon him, but a few sound thumps, administered with the old lady’s crutch, soon quieted him. The dark night had fallen round them ere they reached the frontier which divides Golden Cloud from Work-a-Day.
At this point Dame Dot dismounted, and, taking leave of the Princess and her companion, said,—
“We part here, for I cannot cross this line. Remember me to His Majesty and the Queen. Farewell!”
The crone vanished, together with the ass, and left the King’s daughter and her champion standing on the threshold of two worlds—the known and unknown.
On this borderland they beheld on one side a dim, imperfect light, out of which came voices filled with groans and sobs. The air trembled with countless sighs, upborne from millions of aching hearts; but the rush and the roar, and the hurry-skurry of tumult and bustle swallowed up the sounds. The other side gleamed soft and clear, with roseate shadows. There was no cry of pain, no wail of despair there.
“This is our way,” the Princess said, and they left the obscure reflection behind them and went onward into the light.