Part 6 (1/2)

”Woman,” said the prince, ”your husband is dead. Give me back the Princess Lindagull, and no harm shall come to you.”

”O mercy! And is he dead?” exclaimed the Lapp woman, coming out of the tent, but not appearing very much distressed. ”Ah, well! It's time there should come an end to his evil arts. As for Lindagull, we must seek her out there among the heather blossoms. My husband has changed her into a heather blossom, exactly like many thousands of others; and to-night the frost will come and then all will be over with her!”

”Ah! dearest little Lindagull! Must you die to-night and I not be able to discover the stalk on which you wither?” cried the prince, throwing himself down among the heather on the boundless moor, where a thousand times a thousand pale, purple-pink blossoms, exactly like each other, awaited death.

”Hold!” said the Lapp woman. ”Despair not! Now occurs to me the saying with which Lindagull was enchanted! I thought he planned a wrong against the child, and crept back of a big stone to see what my husband was going to do. Then I heard him say:

”_Adama donai Marrabataesan!_”

”Ah!” sighed the prince, ”how can that help us when we do not know the words which loosen the enchantment?”

Pimpepanturi, waking and thinking that the dinner had been long enough deferred, walked out of the tent to look for his mother. When he heard the prince's words, he scratched his forehead thoughtfully a few times and said, ”Father used to change the saying around when he wanted to disenchant any one.”

”Yes, so he did!” said the Lapp woman.

Prince Abderraman, with terrified eagerness, gave a great leap, landed on a rock, and shouted as loudly as he could over the limitless heath:

”_Marrabataesan donai Adama!_”

The words rang out through the air without effect. No blossom arose. The sun was sinking rapidly toward the horizon and the wind was growing still.

The prince, fearing he should not give the right turn to the magic command, repeated it time after time saying the words in different order and with different expression. But in vain.

At last, at a certain way of saying the words, it seemed to him that a bit of heather on a distant mound had lifted itself up to listen, but sunk immediately back, undistinguishable among the mult.i.tudinous blossoms.

”The sun is going down,” said the Lapp woman. ”If we do not quickly find the right manner of saying the words, the frost will come, and then it will be too late.”

By this time the sun's red beams had sunk quite down to the horizon. All nature was silent. A cool and damp evening mist, the forerunner of the frost, spread itself like a veil over moor and mound. All living things which had ventured to bloom for a short time in Lapland were now doomed to death.

Prince Abderraman was pallid with terror. His voice choked, and he could scarcely articulate the one untried arrangement of the magical words:

”_Marraba donai Adama taesan._”

Behold! On the distant hillock, a heather blossom raised itself on its stalk. It grew as rapidly as does the lily which the Afghanistan fairies cause to spring forth in the red dawn, when they tap on the blue mountains with their magic wands.

The mist lay all around the mound. Out of the mist arose a slender figure, and as the prince approached the mound, running breathlessly, Lindagull came toward him pale with the escape of death. Prince Abderraman had found the right order for the words just in time to save her life.

The Princess Lindagull was borne to the tent in the arms of Abderraman, and her strength soon returned under the Lappish woman's kind care.

Pimpedora was happy; and Pimpepanturi in his gladness forgot his longed-for dinner, which was sadly burnt in the pot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUT OF THE MIST AROSE A SLENDER FIGURE.--_Page 80_.]

The hero-prince, picturing to himself the perils of the princess and the wonder of her recovery, swooned with rapture. His first words as he recovered were a prayer to Allah; and then he asked Lindagull:

”How did it feel to be changed into a heather blossom?”

”Just as if one sank back into the cradle of childhood and knew no more of the world than to eat, drink, and be happy in G.o.d's love,” answered Lindagull.