Part 5 (1/2)

One day as he wandered about he came upon a vine that was laden with great cl.u.s.ters of luscious red grapes. He fell upon them ravenously and ate bunch after bunch. Suddenly he felt something in his hair and lifting his hands he found that horns had grown out all over his head.

”Fine grapes these are!” he exclaimed, ”to bring out horns on a person's head!”

However, he was so hungry that he kept on eating until his head was one ma.s.s of horns.

The next day he found a vine that had cl.u.s.ters of white grapes. He began eating the white grapes and he hadn't finished a bunch before the horns all fell off his head.

”Ha!” he said. ”The red grapes put horns on and the white grapes take them off! That's a trick worth knowing!”

He took some reeds and fas.h.i.+oned two baskets one of which he filled with red grapes and the other with white grapes. Then staining his face with the dark juice of a leaf until he looked brown and sunburned like a countryman, he went back to Peerless Beauty's castle. There he marched up and down below the Peerless one's window crying his wares like a huckster:

”Sweet grapes for sale! Who wants my fresh sweet grapes!”

Now it was not the season for grapes, so Peerless Beauty when she heard the cry was surprised and said to her serving maid:

”Go quickly and buy me some grapes from that huckster and mind you don't eat one yourself!”

The serving maid hurried out to Danilo and he sold her some of the red grapes. As she carried them in, she couldn't resist the temptation of slipping a few into her mouth. Instantly some horns grew out on her head.

”That's to punish me for disobeying my mistress!” the poor girl cried.

”Oh, dear, what shall I do?”

She was afraid to show herself to Peerless Beauty, so she pretended she was taken sick and she went to bed and pulled the sheet over her head and sent in the grapes by another serving maid.

Peerless Beauty ate them all before she discovered their frightful property. Then there was a great to-do, and cries of anger and of fright, and a quick sending out of the guards to find the huckster. But the huckster had disappeared.

What could Peerless Beauty do now? She tried to pull the horns out but they wouldn't come. She tried to cut them off but they resisted the edge of the sharpest knife. She was too proud to show herself with horns, so she swathed her head with jewels and ribbons and pretended she was wearing an elaborate head-dress.

Then she sent heralds through the land offering a huge reward to any one who could cure her serving maid of some strange horns that had grown out on her head. You see she thought if she could get hold of some one who would cure the maid, then she could make him cure her, too.

Well, doctors and quacks and all sorts of people came and tried every kind of remedy, but all in vain. The horns stayed firmly rooted.

A whole week went by and when the last of the quacks had come and gone, Danilo, disguised as an old physician, presented himself and craved audience with the Peerless one. He carried two small jars in his hands one of which was filled with a conserve made from the white grapes and the other with a conserve made from the red grapes.

Peerless Beauty, her horns swathed in silk and gleaming with jewels, received him coldly.

”Are you one more quack?” she asked.

”Not a quack,” he said, bowing low, ”but a man who has happened upon a strange secret of nature. I can cure your serving maid of her horns provided she confess to me all her misdeeds and hand over to me anything she has that does not belong to her.”

Peerless Beauty had him shown to the room where the serving maid lay in bed. The poor frightened girl at once confessed that she had stolen a few of her mistress's grapes and eaten them. Danilo spoke kindly to her, gave her some of the white grape conserve, and as soon as she had tasted it the horns of course dropped off.

Thereupon Peerless Beauty led Danilo to her own chamber, ordered all her people out, and then acknowledged that she, too, was suffering from horns.

”I am sure I can cure you,” Danilo told her, ”provided you confess to me all your misdeeds and hand over to me whatever you have that belongs to some one else.”

”I cheated a foolish young man out of five bags of gold,” Peerless Beauty said. ”Here they are in this chest. Take them.”

Danilo opened the chest and took out his own five bags of gold.