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never been better loved by the people for their Roman virtue.
"Honour bright?" said the King at last.
"Honour bright!" answered the Prince, and for the first time in many months, the royal father
and son shook hands.
"For you, madam," said Prigio in a stately way to Lady Molinda, "in less than a week I trust
we shall be taking our vows at the same altar, and that the close of the ceremony which finds
us cousins will leave us brother and sister."
PRWCE PRtGIO 81
Poor Molinda merely stared; for she could not imagine what he meant. In a moment he was
gone; and having taken, by me King's permission, the flying carpet, he was back at the
ambassador's house in Gluckstein.
CHAPTER XVII
The Black Cat and the Brethren
Who was glad to see the Prince, if it was not Lady Rosalind? The white roses of her cheeks
turned to red roses in a moment, and men back to white again, they were so alarmed at the
change. So the two went into the gardens together, and talked about a number of things; but
at last the Prince told her that, before three days were over, all would be well, or alt would be
over with him. For either he would have brought his brothers back, sound and well. to
Falkenstein, or he would not survive his dishonour.
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"It is no more than right," he said, "for had I gone first, neither of them would have been sent
to meet the monster after I had fallen. And I should have fallen, dear Rosalind, if I had faced
the Firedrake before I knew you."
Then when she asked him why, and what good she had done him, he told her all the story;
and how, before he fell in love with her. he didn't believe in fairies, or Firedrakes, or caps of
darkness, or anything nice and impossible, but only in horrid useless facts, and chemistry,
and geology, and arith- metic, and mathematics, and even political economy. And the
Firedrake would have made a mouthful of him then.
So she was delighted when she heard this, almost as much delighted as she was afraid
that he might fail in the most difficult adventure. For it was one thing to egg on a Remora
82 Andrew Long
to kill a Firedrake, and quite another to find the princes if they were alive, and restore them
if they were dead!
But the Prince said he had his plan, and he stayed that night at the ambassador's. Next
morning he rose very early, before anyone else was up, that he might not have to say
"Goodbye" to Lady Rosalind. Then he flew in a moment to the old lonely castle, where
nobody went for fear of ghosts, ever since the Court retired to Falkenstein.
How still it was, how deserted; not a sign of life, and yet the Prince was looking
everywhere/or some living thing. He hunted through the castle in vain, and then went out to
the stable yard; but all the dogs of course had been taken away, and the neighbouring
fanners had offered homes to the poul- try. At last, stretched at full length in a sunny place,
the Prince found a very old, half-blind, miserable cat. The poor creature was lean, and its fur
had fallen off in patches; it could no longer catch birds, nor even mice, and there was
nobody to give milk to it. But cats do not look far into the future; and this old black
cat Frank was his name had got a breakfast somehow, and was happy in the sun. The
Prince stood and looked at him pityingly, and he thought that even a sick old cat was, in
some ways, happier than most men.
"Well," said the Prince at last, "he could not live long anyway, and it must be done. He will
feel nothing."
Then he drew the sword of sharpness, and with one turn of his wrist cut the cat's head clean
off.
It did not at once change into a beautiful young lady, as perhaps you expect; no, that was
improbable and, as the Prince was in love already, would have been vastly inconve- nient.
The dead cat lay there, like any common cat.
Then the Prince built up a heap of straw, with wood on it;
and mere he laid poor puss, and set fire to the pile. Very soon there was nothing of old
black Frank left but ashes!
Then the Prince ran upstairs to the fairy cupboard, his heart beating loudly with excitement.
The sun was shining through the arrow-shot window; all the yellow motes were dancing in its
rays. The light fell on the strange heaps of fairy things talismans and spells. The Prince
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hunted about here and there, and at last he discovered six ancient water vessels of black
PRINCE PRIGIO 83
leather, each with a silver plate on it, and on the plate letters engraved. This was what was
written on the plates:
AQVA. DE. FONTE. LEONUM.*
"Thank Heaven!" said the Prince. "I thought they were sure to have brought it!"
Then he look one of the old black leather bottles, and ran downstairs again to the place
where he had burned the body of the poor old sick cat.
He opened the bottle and poured a few drops of the water on the ashes and the dying
embers- Up there sprang a tall, white flame of fire, waving like a tongue of light; and forth
from the heap jumped the most beautiful, strong, furry black cat that ever was seen!
It was Frank as he had been in the vigour of his youth; and he knew the Prince at once, and
rubbed himself against him and purred.
The Prince lifted up Frank and kissed his nose for joy; and a bright tear rolled down on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]