"Quite true," answered Ludovine. "But I told my deliverer to be ready to go with me when I pa.s.sed by with my coach. I pa.s.sed three times, but he slept so soundly that no one could wake him."
"What is your name?" said the King, "and who are you?"
"My name is John. I am a soldier, and my father is a boatman."
"You are not a fit husband for my daughter. Still, if you will give us your purse, you shall have her for your wife."
"My purse does not belong to me, and I cannot give it away."
"But you can lend it to me till our wedding-day," said the Princess with one of those glances the little soldier never could resist.
"And when will that be?"
"At Easter," said the monarch.
"Or in a blue moon!" murmured the Princess; but the Kinglet did not hear her and let her take his purse.
Next evening he presented himself at the palace to play picquet with the King and to make his court to the Princess. But he was told that the King had gone into the country to receive his rents. He returned the following day, and had the same answer. Then he asked to see the Queen, but she had a headache. When this had happened five or six times, he began to understand that they were making fun of him.
"That is not the way for a King to behave," thought John. "Old scoundrel!" and then suddenly he remembered his red cloak.
"Ah, what an idiot I am!" said he. "Of course I can get in whenever I like with the help of this."
That evening he was in front of the palace, wrapped in his red cloak.
On the first story one window was lighted, and John saw on the curtains the shadow of the Princess.
"I wish myself in the room of the Princess Ludovine," said he, and in a second he was there.
The King"s daughter was sitting before a table counting the money that she emptied from the inexhaustible purse.
"Eight hundred and fifty, nine hundred, nine hundred and fifty----"
"A thousand," finished John. "Good evening everybody!"
The Princess jumped and gave a little cry. "_You_ here! What business have you to do it? Leave at once, or I shall call----"
"I have come," said the Kinglet, "to remind you of your promise. The day after to-morrow is Easter Day, and it is high time to think of our marriage."
Ludovine burst out into a fit of laughter. "Our marriage! Have you really been foolish enough to believe that the daughter of the King of the Low Countries would ever marry the son of a boatman?"
"Then give me back the purse," said John.
"Never," said the Princess, and put it calmly in her pocket.
"As you like," said the little soldier. "He laughs best who laughs the last;" and he took the Princess in his arms. "I wish," he cried, "that we were at the ends of the earth;" and in one second he was there, still clasping the Princess tightly in his arms.
"Ouf," said John, laying her gently at the foot of a tree. "I never took such a long journey before. What do you say, madam?" The Princess understood that it was no time for jesting, and did not answer. Besides she was still feeling giddy from her rapid flight, and had not yet collected her senses.
VI
The King of the Low Countries was not a very scrupulous person, and his daughter took after him. This was why she had been changed into a serpent. It had been prophesied that she should be delivered by a little soldier, and that she must marry him, unless he failed to appear at the meeting-place three times running. The cunning Princess then laid her plans accordingly.
The wine that she had given to John in the castle of the goblins, the bouquet of immortelles, and the scarf, all had the power of producing sleep like death. And we know how they had acted on John.
However, even in this critical moment, Ludovine did not lose her head.
"I thought you were simply a street vagabond," said she, in her most coaxing voice; "and I find you are more powerful than any king. Here is your purse. Have you got my scarf and my bouquet?"
"Here they are," said the Kinglet, delighted with this change of tone, and he drew them from his bosom. Ludovine fastened one in his b.u.t.ton-hole and the other round his arm. "Now," she said, "you are my lord and master, and I will marry you at your good pleasure."
"You are kinder than I thought," said John; "and you shall never be unhappy, for I love you."
"Then, my little husband, tell me how you managed to carry me so quickly to the ends of the world."
The little soldier scratched his head. "Does she really mean to marry me," he thought to himself, "or is she only trying to deceive me again?"
But Ludovine repeated, "Won"t you tell me?" in such a tender voice he did not know how to resist her.
"After all," he said to himself, "what does it matter telling her the secret, as long as I don"t give her the cloak."
And he told her the virtue of the red mantle.
"Oh dear, how tired I am!" sighed Ludovine. "Don"t you think we had better take a nap? And then we can talk over our plans."
She stretched herself on the gra.s.s, and the Kinglet did the same. He laid his head on his left arm, round which the scarf was tied, and was soon fast asleep.
Ludovine was watching him out of one eye, and no sooner did she hear him snore than she unfastened the mantle, drew it gently from under him and wrapped it round her, took the purse from his pocket, and put it in hers, and said: "I wish I was back in my own room." In another moment she was there.
VII
Who felt foolish but John, when he awoke, twenty-four hours after, and found himself without purse, without mantle, and without Princess? He tore his hair, he beat his breast, he trampled on the bouquet, and tore the scarf of the traitress to atoms.
Besides this he was very hungry, and he had nothing to eat.
He thought of all the wonderful things his grandmother had told him when he was a child, but none of them helped him now. He was in despair, when suddenly he looked up and saw that the tree under which he had been sleeping was a superb plum, covered with fruit as yellow as gold.
"Here goes for the plums," he said to himself, "all is fair in war."
He climbed the tree and began to eat steadily. But he had hardly swallowed two plums when, to his horror, he felt as if something was growing on his forehead. He put up his hand and found that he had two horns!
He leapt down from the tree and rushed to a stream that flowed close by. Alas! there was no escape: two charming little horns, that would not have disgraced the head of a goat.
Then his courage failed him.
"As if it was not enough," said he, "that a woman should trick me, but the devil must mix himself up in it and lend me his horns. What a pretty figure I should cut if I went back into the world!"