Top of the World Stories for Boys and Girls Part 5

"Well now," he asked, "have you decided?"

Lindagull covered her fair face and answered nothing.

"There is still one day's time for thought," said the wizard, "and you shall have some company to help hasten your decision." As he said this he opened the door of the grotto, and immediately something like a great cloud streamed in. It was a swarm of Lapland's starved-out gnats. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of them, and they filled the grotto like a thick cloud of smoke.

"I wish you much joy in your new acquaintances!" said the ugly wizard, shutting the door quickly as he went out.

Lindagull did not understand his meaning. She did not know the sting of the Lapland gnat. She had never been annoyed by the Persian firefly even, for a slave had always stood at her side night and day with a long waving peac.o.c.k feather to protect her from all hurtful insects. The knowledge of such suffering as the horde of stinging gnats would have inflicted was kept from her now by the kindly Dreams; who, the instant the door was shut, threw around her a close-woven veil of finest texture, from the loom of the fairies. Through this veil the gnats could not make their way. Not a drop of royal blood did they taste, day or night. They bit with all their little power at the hard granite rocks; but finding these too juiceless, the disappointed insects settled themselves like a gray web about all the cracks and corners of the grotto.

At midnight the door of the grotto was noiselessly opened and in walked the Lapp woman, Pimpedora, with a jar in her hand, followed by Pimpepanturi carrying a burning torch and some smoked reindeer meat.

"Poor child," said the good-hearted Lapp woman, "it is a sin to keep you here; but I dare not let you out, for if I did my husband would change me to a mountain rat. See, I have brought you some pitch-oil in my jar.

Spread it all over your body; that will keep you from being stung to death by the gnats."

"And see here, I have brought you a smoked shoulder of reindeer so that you shall not starve to death," said Pimpepanturi, good-naturedly. "It is somewhat nibbled, because I grew so very hungry on the way; but there is still a little meat on the bone. And I stole the key of the grotto while Father slept, but I dare not let you out, for if I did Father would change me into a wolverine. But you need not trouble yourself about taking me for your husband. I'll wager that you cannot even cook a black pudding properly."

"No, I know I cannot, truly," answered Princess Lindagull, and she thanked them both for their good-will, but explained to them that she was neither hungry nor gnat-stung.

"Well! Keep the pitch-oil for safety's sake," said the Lapp woman.

"Yes, keep the shoulder of reindeer, too," said Pimpepanturi.

"A thousand thanks," replied Lindagull.

Then the door was closed and she was again alone.

The next morning the wizard came, expecting that now he should surely find his captive half stung to death by gnats and completely subdued.

But when he saw Lindagull as blooming as before, and saw her again look thoughtfully into his face without speaking, his wrath knew no bounds.

"Come out!" he shouted.

Lindagull stepped forth in the clear day, as delicate and bright as a fairy in moonlight. When she threw back her veil to look about, the sun shone before her, warm and radiant as on a spring morning in the blue mountains of Afghanistan.

Then said the wizard: "I have a great mind to take you to old King Bom Bali in Turan. He would load six a.s.ses with gold to get hold of you for a single day! But no; I will not give up yet. Listen to what I have decided upon. You shall be turned into a heather blossom on a Lappish moor and live only as long as a heather blossom lives, unless you will yield to my wishes. Notice the sun: it now stands low in the sky. In two weeks and a day comes the first polar frost. Then the heather blossoms die. Just before the frost comes, I shall question you for the last time."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LINDAGULL STEPPED FORTH IN THE CLEAR DAY.--_Page 70_.]

Glaring at her, he waited, as if expecting the desired answer at once; but as Lindagull again only gazed thoughtfully up at him in silence, the wizard cried out in a voice trembling with anger:

"_Adama donai Marrabataesan!_"

which meant, "Human life! sink into the likeness of a flower!"

The wizard had learned these magic words one autumn evening from the South Wind when it came from the African desert and laid itself to rest on a Lapland mountain. The wind understands all languages, for all words are spoken in its hearing.

As the magician uttered this frightful command, it seemed to Lindagull as if all the flower-stalks on the heath grew to trees and overshadowed her; but it was she herself who sank down to the earth. The next moment a stranger's eye could no longer distinguish her from the thousands and thousands of pale purple-pink heather blossoms on the Lappish waste. "In one day and two weeks!" mumbled the wizard, casting a malignant glance behind him as he turned back to his tent.

[4] Ole Shut-Eye. (The Sandman.)

CHAPTER IV

THE RELEASE

While all this was taking place, Prince Abderraman was riding the wide world over, with his sword at his side and his staff in his hand. There was not a mountain in Asia, not a desert in Africa, nor a field, town or city in Southern or Middle Europe which he had not traversed in vain.

But what had he to hope for in Europe? No tigers are found there except the tame ones exhibited in the city menageries; and among _them_ there was no _Ahriman_! Sorrow drew the prince back on the way to Persia, and his trusty dog, Valledivau, accompanied him.

One day the dog hunted a wild duck among the reeds of a lake, captured it and carried it alive to his master. Just as the prince was about to kill it, the duck quacked out:

"Spare my life, and I will tell you something!"

"I _will_ spare your life, wonderful bird," the prince exclaimed, astonished. "What have you to tell me?"

"Ride to Lapland!" quacked the duck, at the same time escaping into the water.

Lapland! The prince had never even heard of such a kingdom. When he inquired about it and how he should find it, people answered:

"Ride northward, steadily northward; and stop not until the road ends, the forest ends, and you no more find a human dwelling with builded hearth."

"Wonderful!" thought the prince, and he followed the advice. He rode northward, steadily northward; stopping not until the road came to an end, the forest came to an end, and no human dwelling was to be seen but one lone movable tent.

It was on the last day of August, after he had ridden many long and weary miles without seeing a single trace of man, that the prince suddenly discovered, at the foot of a high mountain, this lone tent of reindeer skin. The last day of August! The sun still shone and the heather still blossomed, but the sky had changed and a cool north wind blew. When the wind ceased, then would come the frost!

The prince drew nearer to the tent that he might once more repeat his fruitless query for the lost princess, when to his indescribable astonishment he perceived in the distance an inscription on a rock on the mountainside. The characters were very legible. He read the name of

LINDAGULL!

The wizard had carved the name there, over the door of the mountain grotto, so that he could find the place again when he moved his tent away.

The prince had dismounted, and was just about to draw his sword and enter the tent when Hirmu came out on his way to the heath.

"Give me back the Princess Lindagull or I will send you to the Kingdom of the Prince of Darkness!" shouted Abderraman.

The wizard was a crafty fellow who knew many a trick by which to save himself when in a dilemma. But he lost his presence of mind at this unexpected encounter and could think of no better way out of the difficulty than to change himself instantly into a mountain fox. With a hasty spring he fled swiftly away into the mountain. He thought thus to be safe from the prince's sword, but he forgot the dog by whom the prince was followed!

No sooner had Valledivau seen the fox spring away than he was off on the hunt after it. The fox hid in every cleft and jumped over the mountain ravines; but Valledivau, even more agile, chased him to the highest mountain top, tore him in pieces, and ate up his heart.

This proved the death of Hirmu the wizard; for his heart had entered the fox just as it had before gone into the tiger; and when the heart was eaten up, that was the end of the wizard.

When the dog returned with his nose covered with blood, his master understood that now their common enemy had met his destruction. But where was Lindagull to be found?

The prince went to the door of the tent. The Lapp woman, Pimpedora, was cooking reindeer meat; and her boy, Pimpepanturi, stretched lazily on the soft moss, was sleeping instead of doing something useful while he was waiting for dinner.