THE STORY OF THE MAGIC DOUBLET
“When I was a young man,” said my father,—
“Please excuse me, Solario,” said Prince Bilbo; “don’t you think it might be better to go on with the main story, without stopping to—”
“Really, I think it would,” said the Princess Dorobel.
“Oh, mother!” said Bojohn.
“If it is your pleasure,” said Solario, “I will omit the story of the magic doublet for the present.”
“I really think it would be better,” said the Princess Dorobel.
“Oh, shucks,” said Bojohn to Bodkin, in a whisper.
“This is the doublet,” said my father when he had finished his story, “which, as I have told you, was made by the One-Armed Sorcerer with his left hand. Prepare now for your journey, my son, and good fortune attend you.”
All that day I spent in preparation, and early on the next morning I set forth for the city of Oogh. My daughter, the Princess Amadore, implored me to take her with me. She was ever of an ardent and adventurous spirit, and she would not listen to my objections on the score of danger. She usually had her way with me, and I knew from the first that there was no use in resisting her entreaties; and the upshot of it was that I yielded, though much against my judgment.
The Prince and His Daughter Set Forth for Oogh
In due time we made our way to the city of Fadz on the seacoast, where we took ship for Oogh; and for some two weeks we sailed the Great Sea with favorable winds. At the end of that time we were blown out of our course by storms, and took shelter in the Island Kingdom, at a port called Ventamere, whence we visited the kingdom’s capital city, and arrived there in time to witness, as the King’s guests, the marriage of his daughter the Princess Hyla to one Alb, a goldsmith’s son, a youth of exceedingly cheerful and engaging manners. This ceremony over, we returned to Ventamere, and there took ship once more for Oogh.
No further accident delayed us, and after a week we sighted that part of the mainland which my father had described to me. At my direction we were put ashore, my daughter and myself, at a point where, as I knew, I should find the road to Oogh.
Leaving orders for the ship to ride at a safe distance from shore against our return, we turned our faces inland; but before going further, I darkened my face, neck, and hands with walnut juice, and dressed myself in patched and threadbare clothing. I put on my magic doublet, but concealed it beneath a rude blue smock. I tried to persuade my daughter to darken her face also, but she positively refused to ruin her complexion, as she expressed it, and I now regretted bitterly that I had brought her with me. I was able to persuade her, however, to put on a coarse and tattered gown, but she did it very unwillingly. I had provided myself with some trinkets of silver, odds and ends of lace and silk, and children’s toys, and these I now slung on my back in a pack. Thus, in the character of a peddler and his daughter, we set forth upon the road to Oogh.
A Strange Encounter at a Wayside Well
Late in the afternoon we saw before us the roofs of the city, and at the end of the road a gate in the city wall. At the same time we perceived, in a clump of trees, a wayside well, and we were hastening toward it, being tired and thirsty, when we heard a voice in that direction, which was exclaiming angrily:
“There! Take that! I hate you, I hate you! Oh, if I could never see you again!”
Hearing no reply to this outburst, and wondering who it was that could take such language in silence, we hurried forward, and saw, standing beside the well, under the trees, a boy and no one else; a boy of some twelve years of age, dressed in a gorgeous robe of pale yellow silk; a singularly beautiful boy, with great dark eyes and curly dark hair, but a face extremely pallid and stained with tears; a face, in fact, the saddest I had ever seen in a child. He was picking up from the wet ground beside the well handfuls of mud, and spattering his silk robe with it; and as we arrived he tore from his head a cap of spotless white velvet and stamped it into the mud, crying out, “I won’t wear you any more, I won’t! I hate you!” And then he burst into tears and flung himself full length on his face in the mud, beating the ground with his hands and muttering brokenly to himself.
We paused in astonishment, but my daughter, recovering herself quickly, ran to him and put her hand on his shoulder. He sat up, startled. He rose to his feet timidly, and gazed at us with big round eyes, trying to choke back his sobs. He was mud from head to foot, and his gorgeous robe was ruined.
My daughter coaxed him to tell her what was the matter, but he made no answer; instead, he pulled off the ruined robe and flung it in the mud, and standing in his shirt and breeches stamped upon it and burst into tears again, and cried, “I won’t wear it! I want to be poor! I want to be like the others! Oh, the wicked Eyebrow! Why can’t he be good like the others? Oh, if I could only cut off the Eyebrow and make him poor and good like the others!”
My daughter took his hand and begged him to tell her his trouble, but all he would say was, “He’s wicked, and I want him to be good like the others! And to-night he’s going to give the Blind Bowler to Goolk the Spider, and I can’t stop him, I can’t stop him!” And he broke into a fresh storm of sobbing.
My daughter shook her head at me pityingly.
“We are very sorry, my lad,” said I, “and I ask you to trust us. We are going into the city, and perhaps when you know us better you will tell us all about it. We should like to help you. Will you come with us?”
“What can a peddler do against the Eyebrow?” said the boy,—but he dried his tears, and allowed my daughter to lead him forth by the hand into the road.
We could make nothing of the boy’s wild talk, but we went onward without questioning him further, and drew near to the city in silence. Beside the city gate, under the wall, a crowd of idle people were gathered, and from the center of the group we could hear voices singing together hoarsely. In a few minutes we were in the midst of the crowd, and saw what it was the idlers were looking at.
The Three Blind Ballad Singers
Three blind men were singing a comic ballad in loud voices, and prancing up and down in time, with such antics that the crowd roared with delight. Each of the three held in his hand a sheaf of papers,—ballads, undoubtedly, intended for sale to the onlookers. Suddenly they stopped, each with a hand at his ear, and looked up at the sky as if listening.
“Is there a stranger here?” cried one of them.
“A peddler and a maid!” shouted one of the crowd. “All tattered and torn!”
“With eyebrows?” cried the ballad singer.
“Yes! yes!” said several of the crowd together.
I did not like this sort of attention very well, and I was about to draw my daughter away, when the ballad singers faced with one accord in my direction and began to cry, “Buy our ballads! Ho, master Eyebrows! Buy our ballads! Welcome to Oogh, master Eyebrows!”
The faces and heads of these three fellows were covered with black hair; but I now noticed that not one of them had the vestige of an eyebrow; and I observed further that there was not an eyebrow amongst all the crowd, with the exception only of the boy at my side; and as to him, the people, when they saw him, suddenly fell silent, and backed away from him with something like fear in their eyes. The boy observed it, as I could see, and looked as if he were going to cry again.
“What do we say, brothers,” shouted one of the ballad singers, “what do we say to the damsel in the tattered gown? Shall one of us marry the tattered damsel? Oh, yes, oh, yes! Tra la, tra la,—”
He paused, as if waiting for a laugh; but the crowd did not laugh any more, and my daughter was herself in fact the only one who seemed to be amused. As for myself, I was beginning to be angry.
“We’ll marry the Lady Tatters!” cried the blind man. “O-o-oh!” And he burst into a loud song, in which the other two joined, all three prancing up and down meanwhile in a ridiculous dance. So far as I can recollect it, their song went something like this:
“O Lady Tatters! O Lady Tatters!
We scorn the fellow who basely flatters,
But we can’t help saying that nobody matters
But you, fair lady, but you, but you!
Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la,
We know that it’s generally customary
In cases like these to be shy and wary,
For often enough in matrimony
There’s plenty of gall mixed in with the honey,
How true that is! how true! how true!
Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la,
But under existing circumstances
Every fellow must take some chances,
Refusing to bother concerning expenses
And other deplorable consequences,
Cheerfully scorning each friendly warning,—
How few regard it! how few! how few!
Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la,
O Lady Tatters! O Lady Tatters!
We’ve duly considered these difficult matters,
And now, without any reservation,
We’re ready to enter the marriage relation!
You’ve only to view our reliable faces
And gaze on our truly superlative graces,
To note that the suitors by whom you’re attended
Come really remarkably well recommended,—
Buy it’s all in the point of view! How true!
It’s all in the point of view!
Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la,—”
“Silence, rogues!” I cried, out of all patience at their impudence, but my daughter burst out laughing. It was ever her way to be amused rather than annoyed.
“Master Eyebrows!” shouted the first ballad singer. “Choose one of us for the tattered damsel! What will you take for her? Speak.”
“You shall have the Shears!” shouted the second ballad singer.
“The Shears of Sharpness!” shouted the third.
“See, Eyebrows!” cried the first. “The Shears of Sharpness!”
The Blind Ballad Singer Displays the Shears of Sharpness
He drew from under his gown a pair of tailor’s shears, and as he did so the crowd fell back as if in alarm. He stepped toward the city wall, and placed his hand on a flat iron bar, some two or three inches in width, supporting an awning over a booth; and applying his shears to it, he cut it through and through as if it had been paper. I gasped in amazement; never had I seen a pair of shears like those.
“The Shears for the lady!” cried the blind man. “Come, Eyebrows, choose!”
“Impudent rascal,” said I, “the lady is my daughter, and I foresee that a good scourging is awaiting you. Come, Amadore!”
“But buy our ballads!” cried the second ballad singer. “Buy our ballads!” cried the others, and each of the three thrust toward me one of his papers.
I took them, and paying over a few coppers, moved on toward the city gate. “Father!” said Amadore in my ear. “The boy is gone!”
It was true. The boy had slipped away, and was gone. The idlers began to laugh again, and I drew my daughter after me into the city.
In a moment we were standing in a street of shops, and my daughter, laughing again, begged me to read my ballads. I glanced at the sheets, still angry, and was about to toss them away, when I observed that they were blank, or nearly so, and I looked at them more closely.
On the first were written these words, and nothing more: “Hurry. Hurry.”
On the second I found these words only: “The Cobweb Room in the Governor’s Palace.”
On the third were these words only: “The Eyebrows of Babadag the Tailor.”
I stared at my daughter in perplexity; but she urged that these could be no other than messages on behalf of our friend Urban, and that we must find him without a moment’s delay. We walked on briskly, intending to inquire our way to the governor’s palace.
The Strange Conduct of the People of Oogh
As we went on, we became aware of a general and oppressive stillness. A few people were in the street, and some could be seen inside the shops; but they conversed in low tones, and they seemed to be idle, indifferent, and listless. Here and there a shopkeeper sat in a chair before his shop, gazing blankly at the opposite wall.
Of the first of these shopkeepers I inquired the direction of the governor’s palace. The man started from his reverie, as if frightened, rose from his chair, stared at me curiously, and without a word went into his shop and closed the door. “Did you see?” said my daughter. “He had no eyebrows.”
At the next corner we came to an open market of stalls, and there I repeated my inquiry. Instead of the usual bustle and clamor of a market, there was the same silence, though the place was thronged with people. I nudged my daughter in surprise, for among all these people there was not an eyebrow. The venders were making no effort, apparently, to sell their wares, and the customers were buying with an air of indifference, as if the business bored them. I began to feel depressed, and even my daughter was sober.
The market man of whom I asked my direction looked anxiously about him before answering, and then whispered hurriedly, “I’ve nothing to do with it. Nothing. How do you come to be wearing eyebrows here?”
Without answering him, I applied at two or three other stalls, but the only result was a shaking of heads and a curious, wide gaze, as of mild alarm. There was nothing to do but to search out unaided the most pretentious house in the city; for such a house, undoubtedly, would be the governor’s residence.
We walked the streets for more than an hour; and everywhere was the same silence, the same listlessness, the same apathy. “I don’t believe,” said my daughter, “that these people have any wills of their own at all.”
“Certainly,” said I, “they have no eyebrows of their own, at least. Except for the boy who ran away from us, I haven’t seen an eyebrow in the city. It seems strange.”
The Mansion in the Ruined Park
We ascended a hill, and came to a park gate, at a point from which we could see the entire city below us. Through the gate, across the park, we saw a residence more imposing than any we had yet seen. The gate hung wide open on broken hinges, and the park within was in a state of ruin.
“This must be it,” said my daughter.
“It seems unlikely,” said I, “but we will soon know.”
We made our way across the park, through tall weeds and tangled brambles, and stood before a splendid but gloomy mansion. The door was swinging open, and we entered.
All was silent within. A sense of calamity seemed to pervade the place; plainly it was deserted. We walked on through spacious apartments, and everywhere was furniture of the richest description, but covered with dust and hung with cobwebs. We stopped finally, far within, before a door which appeared to lead outside.
“It is no use,” said I. “Our friend is gone, if he was ever here, and we must seek him elsewhere.”
“No, no,” said my daughter. “We must find the Cobweb Room.”
She led the way out into an open court green with moss and weeds, in the center of which was a fountain with a dry and littered basin beneath it. I stopped suddenly, and listened. “Hark!” said I. From a distance came, or seemed to come, the voices of the three blind ballad singers, shouting out some ribald ballad. My daughter smiled, and I called out, “Urban!” The singing ceased, and there was no response to my cry. “Come,” said my daughter, and led me around the dry fountain to an alley of cypress trees which opened toward a section of the mansion beyond the court.
An open door at the end of this alley admitted us to a circular chamber, very lofty, evidently an audience room, deserted like the rest, on one side of which, on a daïs, stood a marble seat with arms, covered with cobwebs.
“Ah! Look!” said my daughter, and pointed to an open doorway on the opposite side of the room.
The Solitary Figure Behind the Spider’s Web
The doorway was barred from top to bottom and from side to side with a single monstrous spider’s web. We stood before it and looked through. Seated beside a table in a little room with a high window barred likewise with a cobweb was the figure of our friend, the governor of Oogh.
His head was resting mournfully on his hand, and he was staring vacantly at the floor. His hair was long and powdered with dust; his beard had grown to a great length; but he had no eyebrows. His hands and clothing were white with dust, and there was around his neck, in striking contrast, a gold chain, of very fine gold and delicate workmanship.
“Urban!” I cried. “We are here!”
He did not move. I called his name again, but he seemed not to hear. He did not move nor speak. I pushed briskly against the cobweb, but it held like wire; I could not break through, though I dashed against it with all my strength. I tried to cut it with a sharp knife which I wore under my smock, but it was no use; the cobweb held, and the blade was broken.
We remained for a moment, peering in at our friend, uncertain what to do. Who could have been the author of this witchery? I remembered the name which had occurred on one of the ballad singers’ sheets. I gave a last look at the silent and motionless figure within, and led my daughter back to the court of the dry fountain. There she sat down on the rim of the empty basin, and looked up at the sky as if listening. A faint sound, as of singing at a distance, seemed to float down to us.
“Just as I thought,” said my daughter. “It will be best for me to remain here. I think some information will come to me here, if I wait. Do you go down into the city, father, and seek what you may find there. I will wait here until you return. Don’t be uneasy, father; I shall not be lonesome.” And she laughed, as if at some joke.
I did not understand her purpose, and I refused to leave her; but she insisted, and I gave in at last. She always had her way.
I left her, and set forth alone to obtain such information as I could. I was passing out through the ruinous gateway into the street, when I heard, or fancied I heard, from the direction of the house, the voices of the three blind ballad singers, in one of their songs; but when I stopped to listen I could hear them no longer, and I concluded that I had been mistaken.
I reached the market place, and stood for a moment behind an awning, debating whether I might put a question regarding Babadag the Tailor. I was still uncertain what to do, when a slight commotion among the people attracted my notice. I looked out from my concealment, and saw, approaching from the next corner, the boy whom I had found beside the wayside well.
The Prince Watches the People’s Behavior Toward the Boy
His face was dark with a sort of settled gloom. He walked slowly, and as he came on the people made way for him and stood whispering in groups and glancing at him furtively over their shoulders. He paused at one of the stalls and picking up some dates looked at the vender, timidly and appealingly, as if about to speak; but the vender sidled away from him toward the nearest group, and the boy put down the fruit, sighed, and went on.
He passed the place of my concealment, and by this time tears were beginning to trickle down his cheeks. But he held his head proudly, and looking neither to right nor to left passed out of sight around the next corner.
I followed him, hoping for some light upon the general mystery. I followed him across the city, through many streets, wondering why it was that a boy so gentle and so beautiful should seem to inspire everywhere a kind of mild and listless aversion. At one place a child ran up to him and tugged at his garments, and the boy’s face lighted up with pleasure; but the child’s mother pulled her infant away in a hurry, and the boy went on, more sadly than before.
He came to a street in which, for the space of a single block, the shops and houses were evidently deserted; and in the middle of this block, before a shop with broken windows, deserted apparently like the rest, the boy stopped, and pushing open the front door, went in.
I came up quickly, and peeping in at the same door saw a vacant room within, in which remnants of old merchandise were lying about in disorder, and dirt and refuse lay everywhere on the floor. I went in quietly and crossed the room to a door at the rear, and opening it on a crack saw the boy stooping down in a paved yard. I heard the boy speak, without hearing what he said, and saw him descend by some means into the ground and disappear.
I ran to the spot and knelt down beside an iron grating, some three feet square, which I found there in the pavement. I heard from below a rumble, succeeded by a clatter, and then there was silence. Laying down my pack on the ground I pulled at the grating, and found that it rose on hinges, like a trapdoor. I opened it, and saw beneath it a ladder. I stepped on the top rung, and went down.
The Man with the Ball in the Underground Alley
At the bottom I found myself at one end of a dimly lighted room, very long and very narrow, like an enclosed alley; and near by was the boy, and beside him a grown man, both intent on something at the other end of the room. The man was swinging in his right hand a large wooden ball, and as I watched him he cried out, laughing cheerily:
“Never mind, Figli! This time I’ll make a strike! Only forty-seven more to make! Now watch!”
He hurled the ball from him along the floor, and it rolled swiftly to the far end of the room, where it crashed in among ten large wooden bottles, standing upright on the floor. He was playing tenpins.
“Oh!” cried the boy called Figli. “Only seven!”
“Never mind, never mind,” said the Bowler, cheerfully, and ran up the alley and set up the pins, and then ran back with the ball, in great haste. As he came back, he appeared to look directly at me, but gave no sign of having seen me. I scanned his face closely. He was blind. His hair and beard were black, and he had no eyebrows.
The boy flung out his hands as if in despair, and cried:
“It’s no use! You can’t do it! Forty-seven strikes to make by midnight! Oh, he’ll give you to Goolk the Spider! What shall I do? What shall I do?”
“Perhaps I can help you,” said I, coming forward.
The boy sprang up, and the Blind Bowler wheeled round toward me.
“Oh! it’s you,” said the boy named Figli. “What can a peddler do against the Eyebrow?”
“Who is it?” said the Blind Bowler.
“It’s a stranger with eyebrows,” said Figli, “who was kind to me to-day.”
The Blind Bowler sent a ball spinning up the alley, and all the ten pins fell down with a clatter.
“A strike!” cried Figli, joyfully.
“We’ll do it yet!” said the Bowler. “Only forty-six more! Never give up! Keep everlastingly at it, that’s my motto!” And he ran after the ball, set up the pins, and ran back, ready to throw again.
“If he has eyebrows,” said he, panting and wiping his forehead, “he must have a will of his own; and it must be a good will, or else he wouldn’t have been kind to you.”
He rolled the ball again, knocking down only six.
“Better luck next time!” he cried, and darted up the alley. “Never say die, and keep everlastingly at it, that’s the motto!”
“My boy,” said I, “I beg you to trust me, and to tell me who you are, and why—”
“A strike!” cried the Blind Bowler. “Only forty-five to make by midnight! Trust him, Figli! His voice is honest. I think he is the one we have been waiting for. Trust him!”
“It’s hard for me to tell you,” said the boy, “it’s too—”
“I’ll tell you!” cried the Blind Bowler, running down the alley. “His name is Figli Babadag. Does that tell you everything?”
“No, nothing,” said I.
“Eight down that time!” cried the Bowler. “Never say die! He’s the son of Babadag the Tailor. Now do you know?”
“No,” said I.
“Then I must tell you,” said the Blind Bowler. “It is Babadag who rules the city; don’t you know that? Master of black secrets is Babadag, and lord of the Eyebrow; and his anger is terrible. He has put the golden chain about the Governor’s neck and shut him up in the Cobweb Room. He has drawn the wills from out of the brains of all our people, by plucking out their eyebrows, so that in all the city there are but two wills only, one bad and one good: the will of Babadag and the will of his little son. Nine down that time! Never give up!”
“Oh!” cried Figli. “I want my father to be good! I want him to be poor and good like the others! If I could only make him good!”
“Only one way to do that!” said the Blind Bowler, halfway down the alley. “He is lord of the Eyebrow, and in the Eyebrow lies his power. But the hairs of his eyebrows are no ordinary hairs; they are of the family of gray snakes that live in the lake Siskratoum, and there is no one to cut them, even if there were a blade sharp enough; and they must be cut by the hand of love, and there is no one here that loves him, but his son. There is not one but trembles at his name, and even at the name of Figli his son;—there is scarcely one who dares brush against the boy in the street, for fear of what power may lie in the eyebrows of the boy, and for fear of his father’s malice.”
“They won’t speak to me!” cried Figli. “They’re afraid of me! And I’ve done them no harm! I only want to be friends with them!”
“You see he’s all alone. He hates his riches; he wants to be poor and simple, like the others.”
“And what about yourself?” said I.
“Ah!” cried the Blind Bowler. “Only six down that time! Not so easy, when you’ve no eyes to see with! But keep everlastingly at it, that’s the word! What did you say?”
“What about yourself?” said I.
“Oh, me! I helped the governor fight this Babadag, and we lost; and for that the powerful one put out my eyes, and the eyes of my three brothers as well, for nothing but because they were my brothers; three ballad singers—”
“Yes!” said I. “I have seen them.”
“Ridiculous fellows, but no harm in them! And because it was my pleasure in former times to play at bowling, old Babadag placed me here, under my shop, to bowl a thousand strikes, if I could, by midnight of this very day; and if not, to take my place in the web with Goolk the Spider. Those ballad singers, my brothers, they would like to help me if they could, and perhaps they will yet, who knows? Aha! Another strike! I’ll do it yet!”
“It’s no use,” said Figli. “The time’s too short. And I can’t save him. Oh, if you could help us, peddler! But you mustn’t do my father any harm!”
“My boy,” said I, “I am a friend of the enchanted governor, and I will do my best to help you. And perhaps the three blind ballad singers mean to help too. I think they do. Will you take me to your father?”
The boy started in alarm. “You are very brave, peddler,” said he. “What do you say?” he asked of the Blind Bowler.
“I say yes!” cried the Bowler. “There is hope in this stranger. I think he’s the one we’ve been waiting for. My brothers have been on the lookout for him. They’ll help too. Trust him!”
“Do you know any stories?” said the boy.
I smiled. “A few, I dare say,” said I.
“My father is a lover of tales. It’s his one weakness. It will be safer for you if you can amuse him with tales, and the longer they are the better.”
“The wine, if he offers you any,” said the Blind Bowler, “will be drugged; that much is sure. Take care. And do not let yourself be touched by Goolk the Spider.”
“Come,” said I. “There is not a moment to be lost.”
The Prince Sets Out for His Encounter with Babadag the Tailor
I hastened to the ladder, followed by the boy, and we began to go up. The tenpins fell down with a clatter, and as I reached the grating overhead I heard the voice of the Blind Bowler from below, crying out cheerily, “Four down! Never mind! Keep everlastingly at it!”
In the paved yard I slung my pack on my back again, and followed the boy into the street. It was beginning to grow dark, and I thought anxiously of my daughter; but I could not go back to her yet. During our walk the boy spoke only once, and then he said:
“You must not do my father any harm. I love my father. I want him to be good, like the others, but I should die—I should die!—if he came to any harm.”
I did not reply, but followed for half an hour through streets which were now almost empty of people. We entered at last a street narrower than the others, paved with cobblestones and without a sidewalk, and stopped before a shop over whose door, by way of a sign, hung a yardstick and a pair of shears. It seemed a mean enough abode for the ruler of the city, but Figli, without hesitating, opened the door and went in. The room inside was dark, but I could see a tailor’s bench and implements, and a disorderly array of half-finished garments, covered with dust. The boy opened a door at the rear, and I followed him along a dark passage to another door, which Figli threw open to a flood of light.
Babadag the Tailor, Goolk the Spider, and the Eight Tailors
We were standing in a magnificent apartment, paved with colored marble, hung and spread with soft rugs, and lit with hundreds of tapers. At the left, near the wall, was sitting an old man, and behind his chair, from ceiling to floor, was a gigantic spider’s web, which glistened like silver in the candlelight. In the center of this web was a great green spider, with five or six small black spiders about him. Against the opposite wall, on a tailor’s bench, eight men, totally without eyebrows, were sitting cross-legged, each bending over a bowl held on his knees, filled with what looked like shreds of hair, and engaged in some kind of work with tiny knitting needles.
The old man’s gross and heavy body was clothed in a gorgeous robe of pale yellow silk, like that which the boy had thrown in the mud, but embroidered with spider’s webs of spun gold, and studded with rubies and amethysts. His face, a rather jovial face, was covered with gray hair, which hung over his breast, and his eyes shone like sparks behind a pair of the shaggiest eyebrows I had ever seen. He gazed at me calmly, and held out a hand to his son.
“You are welcome, master peddler,” said Babadag
The boy went to him, and Babadag the Tailor put an arm about him and said, with very obvious tenderness:
“My boy, you are late. And your robe and hat! Where are they?”
The boy threw himself on his knees beside his father, and cried, “Oh, father! I couldn’t wear them any longer. I couldn’t! They’re hateful! I don’t want to be dressed in silk! I want to be poor like the others! I can’t wear them any longer, I can’t, I can’t!”
The old man smiled kindly. “Never mind, my son, never mind. I’ll not scold you. We’ll think no more about it. Who is the visitor you have brought with you?”
“It’s a peddler,” said Figli, standing up. “I don’t know his name; a peddler I met by chance, and I’d like you to buy me something from his pack.”
I stepped forward, made my bow, and dropped my pack to the floor.
“You are welcome, master peddler,” said Babadag.
The green spider gave a sharp twitch, which set the whole web quivering.
“Quiet, Goolk!” said Babadag.
The eight men on the tailor’s bench stopped their work, and said: “Welcome, master peddler!”
“Knit your brows!” said Babadag, angrily, and the eight men hurriedly resumed their knitting.
I opened my pack and began to take out some toys.
“Presently, presently, peddler,” said Babadag, stopping me. “Your face is dark, stranger. A little more, and it would have been black.”
“Yes, very dark,” said the eight men, stopping their work again.
“Knit your brows!” thundered Babadag. “Accursed dogs, be silent!—A dark stranger, who wears eyebrows in the city of Oogh! A thing of interest! I would gladly know who you are and what brings you here.”
I was prepared with my story, and I answered promptly.
“Magnificence,” said I, “I am a peddler, and my name is Nobbud Bald-er-Dash. If the ear of graciousness will incline to me, I will tell an amusing tale concerning myself, and at some length.”
“A tale!” cried Babadag. “You must know, honest Bald-er-Dash, that I am a lover of tales. A weakness! I confess it. Come! We will make a night of it. Goolk,” said he, rising, “come hither!”
The green spider sped down the web to the floor, and ran up the old man’s yellow silk robe, and came to a stop on his breast, beside his beard.
“It is the hour of the evening repast,” continued Babadag, stroking the spider with his finger, “and I invite you to sit down with me. A guest who has a tale to tell! It is good fortune, no less! Come, Figli, my son, we will listen to the excellent Bald-er-Dash while we dine.”
The Prince Dines with Babadag the Tailor
He pulled aside a curtain in the wall, and leaving the eight men at their work, we passed, all three, into an open court, hung about with lanterns of colored glass, and odorous with flowers. Under an awning was a small table, set for two. It was now dark, and the lanterns shed a soft glow on the silver and glass of the table. Servants appeared and laid a place for myself, and the meal commenced.
“You are wondering, Bald-er-Dash,” said Babadag, “who the eight men are whom we have just left. They are tailors, known among us as the Knitters of Eyebrows. They are knitting for me, out of the eyebrows which my good people have been so kind as to give me, a garment known as the Cloak of Wills, which will, when finished, complete the mastery of the fortunate person who wears it. Try a little of this wine, my good Bald-er-Dash; you will find it excellent.”
I pretended to drink the wine, but I was able, while Babadag’s attention was fixed on his plate, to spill a good deal of it on the floor.
“I am anxious to hear your story,” said the old man. “The singers who sometimes entertain me at my meals are late to-day, and we will not wait for them. Bald-er-Dash, my good fellow, let me hear your tale.”
At this moment voices were heard from the shadows, and three men came running toward the table, crying out boisterously.
“Good news!” they were shouting. “We’re going to marry! She’s promised! She’ll marry the one you choose, tra la! She’ll marry the one you choose!”
The Three Blind Ballad Singers Once More
They began to sing, at the top of their voices. I started in surprise. It was the three blind ballad singers. “O-o-oh!” they sang:
“She wanted to marry us all, she said,
But that wouldn’t do, no never,
No never, no never, no, no!
From suitors a dozen,
Not counting a cousin
And two or three uncles or so,
She’d freely and frankly, firmly and fairly,
For never a one could sing, not one,
Not a line, not a note, not a thing, not one,
And she, she said, if she must be wed,
A singer she’d have, or she’d have none,
For really she’d almost rather be dead
If she couldn’t be uninterruptedly fed
On an endless tonic
Of scales harmonic
In every possible key,
An infinite series, never finished,
Of chords with all the sevenths diminished,
And all the intervals less than minor,—
Surely nothing could be diviner,
Nothing! nothing at all, said she:
And after breakfast a quaver hemi,
And after dinner a quaver demi,
And after supper a quaver semi,
And in between, for ever and ever,
Every possible kind of shake!
The fact of the matter is, you see,
She’d made up her mind, beyond mistake,
To offer her hand to one of we!
But which should it be?
Which one of the three?
And what of the two who would have to go?
What about them? she said; that’s it!
She didn’t approve the idea a bit.
Those other two she could never forget,—
Just think of them out in the cold and wet!
Just think of their terrible, terrible woe!
She wanted to marry, and yet, and yet,
She’d never be happy, no never,
No never, no never, no, no!”
“Silence, fools,” said Babadag, laughing. “We are about to listen to a tale,—a tale from Bald-er-Dash the peddler. Will you proceed now, excellent peddler?”
“Willingly,” said I.
At the sound of my voice, the three blind men cried out “Aha!” and broke into a fresh song:
“The peddler and the peddler’s maid, oh fair as milk was she,
And she promised on her honor she would marry one of three,—”
“Silence, rascals!” said Babadag.
I was becoming, all this while, more and more restless, for I had no doubt that all this talk of marriage had reference to my own daughter. I wondered bitterly what mischief she had been up to during my absence.
“These rascals,” said Babadag, still laughing, “sometimes I am minded to put them to death. I don’t know really why I let them live. Now then, excellent one, let us hear the tale.”
I bowed, and while the repast proceeded, and the three ballad singers remained standing behind our chairs, I related to Babadag, as follows,
THE STORY OF NOBBUD BALD-ER-DASH THE PEDDLER
“In the course of my wanderings,” I began, “I arrived one day at a spring in the wilderness, beside which were encamped a company of—”
“I think,” said Solario, interrupting himself, “that I cannot conscientiously repeat this story, because—”
“Oh, please!” said Bojohn. “We’d like to hear it.”
“No,” said. Solario, “I couldn’t, conscientiously, because there is not a word of truth in the story, and I do not wish to tell anything which is not strictly true.”
During my tale (said the Prince) I pretended now and then to take a sip of wine, and to grow drowsy, so that toward the end I seemed to have difficulty in keeping awake. When I had concluded, Babadag laughed and said, “I thank you, peddler. Never in my life have I heard such a tissue of—er—amusing facts. Some more wine, peddler.”
I pretended to sip the wine again, and let my head fall forward on my breast, and roused myself as if with a great effort.
“I am something,” said Babadag, appearing to take no notice of my drowsiness, “of a teller of tales myself. I will tell you in return a story, and when I have finished you shall tell me another, if you know any, as you undoubtedly do.”
Thereupon he commenced a long and detailed story; and I could see that as he proceeded he was watching me from the corner of his eye. He had not spun out his tale very far when my eyes closed and my head nodded; and after an apparent effort to arouse myself I let my head fall forward on the table and lie there motionless.
Babadag instantly stopped, raised my head gently, and laying it back against my chair shook me roughly, but with no effect.
“Send in the accursed dogs,” said he in a fierce whisper.
I was aware, in a moment, that the eight tailors were standing around me.
“The eyebrows!” said Babadag, and the tailors bent over me and began to pluck at my eyebrows with instruments of some sort.
“Oh, father, father,” said Figli, “please don’t!”
“Be still, my son,” said Babadag.
The Magic Doublet Protects the Prince Against the Knitters of Eyebrows and Against Goolk the Spider
I laughed inwardly, for I was sure that, under the protection of my doublet, my eyebrows would reappear as fast as they could be plucked out. And indeed, from the snort of rage given by Babadag, I soon knew that my eyebrows were safe. I could hear the eight tailors whispering together, as if in dismay.
“Goolk!” said Babadag, in the same angry whisper, “sting me this false peddler!”
“No, no, father,” said Figli. “Not that, oh, please!”
I shivered a little, for I confess that the thought of the spider was horrifying to me. I waited anxiously, not daring to open my eyelids even a trifle. I assure you it was all I could do to remain still. There was silence, and in the midst of it I felt a tickling on my left cheek, and then a kind of pin-prick there, and I knew that the spider had stung me.
“Back, Goolk!” said Babadag. “Now, false peddler that you are, be no longer either a prince or a peddler, but a spider,—a black spider!—and take your place with Goolk in the web! Change!”
I felt no change, and I heard another snort of rage from Babadag. “Some charm!” he muttered. “Some charm protects him! Let us see what charm this lying stranger carries upon him.”
I felt that my smock was being lifted from my breast, and I heard a kind of gasp from Babadag. “The doublet!” he said. “It is plain! Off with the doublet!” And immediately fingers were at my breast, trying to unbutton the doublet.
But they could not unbutton it. Not a button would come through its hole.
“Fetch me a pair of shears, rascals,” said Babadag, and in a moment I knew that shears were snapping away at my doublet. But it was no use; the blade would not cut, neither the thread of the buttons nor the cloth; they held like iron at every point. I heard the shears drop to the floor.
“The Shears of Sharpness! Bring me the Shears of Sharpness!” said Babadag. “Nothing else will cut this doublet.”
I heard a chuckle, and the voice of one of the ballad singers said, “The Shears of Sharpness, brothers!” And there was another chuckle.
“What!” said Babadag. “You laugh, rascals? You dare to laugh?”
“The Shears of Sharpness!” said the voice of one of the ballad singers. “Where are the Shears of Sharpness, brothers?” And at this there was a very considerable tittering.
“Ask the fair lady, brother,” said the voice of another of the ballad singers.
“She knows! The wonderful lady!” said the voice of the third.
“Ineffable scoundrels!” said Babadag. “Have you stolen my Shears?”
“No, no! Only borrowed them! What harm in that?” said the ballad singers.
“Return them to me at once!” said Babadag.
I could hear the ballad singers chuckling together again. “We would, we would,” said one of them, “we meant to, but—”
“But what, beast?”
“She has them,” said one of the three.
“The most wonderful of women,” said another.
“She who swore she would marry one of us,” said the third.
The Prince’s Daughter Has Beguiled the Shears of Sharpness from the Ballad Singers
My daughter! My own daughter! She had beguiled the Shears from these foolish vagabonds! Or had they let her have the Shears for some purpose of their own—to help their brother, say? I was quite bewildered.
“Oh, that I should let such scoundrels live!” said Babadag, fiercely. “Where is this woman?”
“But she wouldn’t marry us unless we gave her the Shears,” said one of the ballad singers. “No harm in that!”
“No harm in that, surely!” said the other two.
“Where is this woman?” said Babadag again.
“We left her,” said one of the others, “by the dry fountain at the governor’s palace.”
“Accursed,” said Babadag, evidently addressing the eight tailors, “pick up this peddler and follow me. We must find the Shears. You, imbeciles that you are, I will deal with you afterward. Goolk, back to your web!”
I could not see what became of Goolk, but I knew that the eight tailors were lifting me from my chair, and I felt myself being borne away.
“Oh, father!” cried Figli. “You mustn’t! Please let the poor man go, oh please!”
“My son,” said Babadag, in the voice of tenderness with which he always addressed his son, “he is my enemy. I must have him in my power. Accursed doublet!”
A Light Flickers in the Dark Shop
In a moment I was aware that we were in the street, and I opened my eyelids a trifle. The moon was shining. I saw Babadag starting on before, with the three ballad singers at his back. Behind, the eight tailors were holding me in a sitting posture between them. I could see the shop door, without moving my head, and as we started I beheld Figli, coming from the door, in the act of stowing away something, I could not see what, in the bosom of his shirt. The shop was dark, but as Figli closed the door behind him I noticed, flickering from within, a tiny flame of light which had not been there before. I remarked that the boy’s face was very pale in the moonlight.
We came, after a long journey through deserted streets, to the little hill which led up to the governor’s palace. We entered the ruined park, and crossed it to the mansion. Babadag opened the door, and the company paused inside, listening. All was silent. I had an impulse to shout, in order to warn my daughter; but I knew that that would be fatal, and I continued to lie inert and speechless in the arms of the tailors. I risked opening my eyes from time to time, and I saw that Babadag was leading the way from room to room, all dark except for moonlight here and there upon the floors, and that he came at last, followed by all the others, into the court of the dry fountain; and there the eight tailors laid me down on the ground. My heart almost stopped beating, for fear that my daughter should be there.
“Vile rascals,” said Babadag, “you have deceived me! There is no woman here.”
“Astonishing!” said one of the ballad singers. “Not here! Who would have thought it?”
“I doubt that she was ever here,” said Babadag. “Wait!”
I saw him go off down the alley of cypress trees toward the Cobweb Room, no doubt to assure himself that his prisoner was safe, or else to seek the woman there. As soon as he was gone, I felt a hand on my arm, and the voice of Figli whispered in my ear, “Are you awake?” and I pressed his hand in answer.
The Prince’s Daughter Is Gone, and the Prince Makes a Dash for Liberty
The eight tailors were sitting on the rim of the fountain’s basin, mopping their foreheads and panting, and the blind men were standing near them. I measured with my eye the distance to the door from which I had come, and gave a sudden spring toward it which carried me nearly there; and I was off and away, before the eight tailors realized what had happened.
I scoured swiftly and silently through the dark rooms in all directions, listening now and then for sounds of pursuit. But I heard nothing, and I began to whisper my daughter’s name from time to time. In a room far distant from the court, to which I presently came, I found the door at the opposite side closed, which in that house of open doors struck me as being odd. A broad band of moonlight lay across the floor, and in the dim light I could see the furnishings of a kitchen. I approached the opposite door and opened it cautiously, thinking to go through; but I looked into a cupboard, hung with pots and pans, and there on the floor of the cupboard was sitting my daughter, calmly eating a fig.
She looked up at me with a merry laugh, and sprang to her feet.
“There are very good fig trees in the park,” said she. “Will you have one of these? No? You’ve been gone a long time. I heard some people going through the house, and I thought I had better wait in here. I’m going to be married!”
“Beauty in tatters!” said Babadag the Tailor
“Come,” said I, “we’ve no time for jesting.”
“But it’s the best joke!” said my daughter. “When I think how I played on those half-wits! I’ve never had such sport in my life! I promised to marry one of them, if they’d choose which—do you remember the three ballad singers?”
“And you have the Shears of Sharpness,” said I.
“How do you know that?” said she. “They’re simply mad! And I wouldn’t promise them anything unless they gave me the Shears. And they did! And I promised! And now you’ve got to get me out of it. Here are the Shears. Take them.”
“I suspect, my dear,” said I, taking the Shears from her, “that these three imbeciles meant that you should have the Shears all the time, and they’ve been making a bit of a fool of you. But there’s no time for talking. Hurry!”
I stepped quickly toward the door, and as I reached it it was blocked by a huge dark figure. It was Babadag.
“Not so fast, peddler,” said he; and then he saw my daughter, who was standing in the band of moonlight, most fairylike and beautiful. He brushed past me and stopped before her, gazing at her in astonishment and admiration.
“Beauty in tatters!” he said. “No wonder that even blind men are conquered. You make me forget the Shears. Surely there is no woman in Oogh so beautiful. Will you look on me kindly? I am powerful, and I offer you a share of my power. It is Babadag who speaks.”
He held out his hand to her, and she shrank away in horror. “No, no!” she screamed. “Father!”
Babadag turned swiftly, and at that moment I sprang upon him; but the old man snatched forth a knife, and as I caught and held the arm which was lifted to strike, a small dark figure darted in from the doorway and flung something over the old man’s neck from behind.
Babadag the Tailor Is Conquered by His Little Son
The knife dropped from Babadag’s hand. He swayed, tottered, collapsed, and fell full length on the floor, and lay motionless on his back in the strip of moonlight. The little dark figure knelt beside him. It was Figli.
“Oh, father! Oh, father!” he cried. “I’m sorry, sorry! I had to do it! I couldn’t let you kill him! It can’t go on any longer! The eyebrows must be cut, father! It’s only to make you like the others! We’ll both be happier, oh, indeed we will! It’s only because I love you, father!”
“I didn’t think you would have done this, Figli, my son,” said the old man, gently. “You have put me in the power of my enemy. Ah, Figli, my son, my son!”
“I know it, I know it,” sobbed the boy, “but the lady will give the Shears to me, and I will cut the eyebrows myself, with my own hand. The peddler will do you no harm. You’ll be glad, father, afterward, indeed you will.”
“Ah, my son, my son! I wouldn’t have thought it of you,” said the old man, still gently.
I knelt beside him, and found around his neck a noose of the slenderest thread, extremely tough; and the end of this thread the boy was holding in his hand. I took it from him and looked at him inquiringly.
“Yes,” said the boy, “it was spun by Goolk the Spider, and there is no will can stand against it, not even my father’s. It’s the thing that made him first able to pluck out the eyebrows of the people. I stole it as we left the shop to-night. You won’t do him any harm, will you?”
I stood up, keeping the end of the thread in my hand. A patter of running feet sounded from the next room, and the eight tailors crowded in at the doorway. They rushed to their master, and wailed and wrung their hands. One of them drew a pair of shears, and began to snip away at the thread, but it was plain that no ordinary blade would cut it, and the tailor gave it up, and the other seven wailed louder than before.
“Lift up this knave,” I said, “and follow me.”
The eight tailors obeyed instantly, and our party started back to the court of the dry fountain. I walked beside the body of Babadag, keeping close hold of the thread. When we reached the court, the three ballad singers were sitting calmly on the rim of the basin, singing softly to themselves. My daughter, ever incorrigible, greeted them with an amused laugh, and they crowded around her, each trying to elbow the others out of the way. At my command, the eight tailors laid Babadag down on his back in the dry basin. I then gave the end of the thread into the hand of my daughter, and left them.
I ran down the cypress alley to the deserted audience chamber. I looked through the cobweb at Urban, and by the dim light of the high window saw him sitting there motionless as stone, in the same attitude as before.
“I am here!” I cried, but he neither moved nor spoke. I applied the Shears, and in a moment the cobweb was hanging in shreds, and I was standing beside my friend. I tried to pull him up, but I could not budge him. I lifted the golden chain from around his neck, and dropped it to the floor. Immediately he raised his head, stretched his arms, looked up at me as if awaking from a dream, and sprang to his feet.
“Prince!” he cried, and threw his arms about me in a transport of joy.
I calmed him, and when he had recovered himself he said, “What of Babadag?”
“He is in the court at this moment,” said I, “bound fast.”
“Good news indeed!” he cried. “Let us go!”
The Governor, Being Released, Beholds the Prince’s Daughter
We sped back to the court, and when Urban beheld my daughter he scattered the blind men right and left and clasped her hand in his. I took from her the end of the thread and knelt in the basin beside the huge body of Babadag, and gazed down into his eyes, glittering up at me in the moonlight through their tangle of hair. I drew the Shears.
“No, no!” cried the boy. “You must not! Give me the Shears! I must do it, for you do not love him, and I do! Only the hand of love! Give me the Shears!”
“No time for talking!” I cried. “This is no child’s play. Work for a man! And I trust no one but myself! Now for the shearing of the Eyebrow!”
The boy shrieked, as if in despair, and with a mighty snap of the Shears I cut in among the hairs of Babadag’s left eyebrow.
The Shearing of the Eyebrow
A spout of yellow smoke shot upward from his eyebrow, and whirled and spread outward in a cloud, thick, sickening, blinding, pierced with wriggling pencils of light, as if tiny snakes had been set riotously free. It covered us both, so that he was suddenly hidden from my sight. I gasped and choked. My eyes smarted with pain. I snapped blindly away at him through the smoke with my Shears, resolved not to be foiled. There was a sharp crack, as of the snapping of a whip; the Shears had cut,—alas, alas!—not the Eyebrow, but the thread around Babadag’s neck! Instantly the Shears were wrenched from my hand, I did not know how; and I felt them ripping through my smock, and I knew that some injury had been done to my doublet. A terrible voice bellowed, “Hither, accursed dogs, and bind me this peddler!” And the next moment I was lying on my back, with the thread fastened securely about my neck; and my strength was suddenly gone, and the smoke began to clear away.
I saw the old man put his arm tenderly about his son, and heard him say, “It’s all right now, my boy. I am not angry. You have put your father in great danger, but not from malice; I know it well. Don’t be grieved; we’ll laugh about it together, hereafter. All’s well again. Come, Figli, my son. Rascals, follow me!”
He stalked away with his son down the cypress alley, and the eight tailors lifted me and bore me after, followed by my daughter and my friend. I looked for the three blind ballad singers, but they were gone. I was in terrible danger, and I bitterly regretted my haste in refusing the Shears to the boy.
The Prince before the Seat of Judgment
In the circular audience chamber they laid me down upon the floor. Babadag, grotesque and somber in the darkness, seated himself in the marble armchair on the daïs; and at the same time I heard, or fancied I heard, the voices of the ballad singers, afar off somewhere in the palace, singing away at one of their songs.
“Pluck out the hairs!” said Babadag.
“No, no!” said Figli, lying on the step of the daïs at his father’s feet.
“Quick, scoundrels!” said Babadag; and the eight tailors, kneeling around me, plucked out with tiny instruments all the hairs of my eyebrows, by the roots. Then, at a sign from their master, they stood me on my feet and removed the spider’s thread from around my neck. My strength returned, and I found myself able to stand alone.
“Gone is your power, maker of fables!” said Babadag. “The doublet is worthless. See!” And he held up what appeared to be the thread of a button. My smock was in strips, and the doublet was exposed to view. One button was missing. What had become of it? Babadag exhibited only the thread.
“Dog of a peddler,” said he, “it is your due that I give you to Goolk the Spider for his web.”
“Spare him! Spare him!” said Figli, in a kind of moan, rocking himself back and forth on the step of the daïs.
“But Babadag is merciful,” went on the old man, “and loves a tale; and never have I heard so amusing a tissue of lies as that tale of Bald-er-Dash the Peddler. For that, and for the pleasure I shall have in repeating that tale hereafter, I spare you. You are harmless. Go! and as you have chosen to darken your skin with juices, let it be darker still. Go! and be you henceforth as black as night. I will lead you to the palace gate, and speed you, with your daughter and your friend, on your journey away from Oogh. Return no more, peddler, for the web awaits you, and Goolk the Spider longs for a brother.”
He stepped down from his seat, and we others followed him in silence. I was conscious of no will to resist him further. We came to the court of the dry fountain, and there my daughter looked into my face in the moonlight. She screamed.
We followed mournfully through the dark rooms, and came out on the steps before the palace; and there we saw a sight both terrible and beautiful.
The Doom of the City of Oogh
The city was in flames. From every roof, as far as we could see, rose sheets of fire, and sparks showered upward into a pall of black smoke; and as we watched, new tongues of flame blazed up from quarters dark before. The city was doomed.
“Ah!” said Babadag with a groan. “My city, my city!”
“What have I done? What have I done?” cried Figli, wringing his hands in anguish.
“You, my son? What have you to do with this?” said his father, never taking his eyes from the burning city.
“It’s my work!” cried the boy. “But I never dreamed of this! I set fire to the shop, our shop, before I left,—to burn up all the black secrets in my father’s house, and to kill Goolk the Spider, to kill him, kill him, so that he would never get the Blind Bowler, nor any one else! So that all the old riches and wickedness might be burned up forever! And now, and now, I haven’t destroyed the Eyebrow, and I’ve burned up the city! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”
“My son, my son,” said Babadag, quietly, never taking his eyes from the burning city.
I recalled now the spark of fire I had seen through the window as we had left the tailor’s shop that night.
The flames of the furnace below us shot higher and higher, and spread wider and wider in every direction.
“The Book of the Shavian Magic,” said Babadag, as if to himself. “That must be saved.”
He ran down the steps and started across the park.
“Father! father! where are you going?” cried Figli, but his father paid no attention. The boy sped after him, and we others followed.
The Tailor’s Son Follows Him into the Burning City
Out at the park gate and down the hill ran Babadag, and straight into the blazing ruin which was once his city. Nothing could stop him. Flames roared on both sides of him; sparks showered around him; walls toppled behind him; smoke swallowed him; but he kept on. We paused in terror; only his little boy continued to follow him, calling to him to come back.
A wall of flame shot out behind the running boy, and a house fell crashing behind him into the street; and father and boy were no longer to be seen.
I turned away, and leaving the eight tailors wailing, I made my way with my daughter and my friend back to the palace; and there, on the palace steps, we sat all night long, watching the great fire burn itself out.
The sun rose on a city of smoking ruins; and with its first rays there came plodding in through the park gate a blind man, who called aloud as he reached the steps. It was the Blind Bowler.
“I am here,” said I, “Figli’s friend; and my daughter too, and the governor whom once you tried to help. What news?”
“Ten strikes still lacking!” said the Blind Bowler. “But it makes no difference now. Figli has saved me, and all the rest of us too. Come with me.”
He led us out into the street and down into the city, where the homeless people were standing as if bewildered. We came into the street where once had been the shop of Babadag the Tailor. It was there no longer; but by some chance there yet remained the wall which held the doorway, and above it the yardstick and the shears; and across the sill lay Figli, on his face.
The Boy Is Found on the Sill of His Ruined Home, Alive
My daughter ran to him and put her arm about him. He was alive, and he shook his head and moaned, “I want my father. I want my father.”
“Yes,” said she, “your father. Is he—?”
“In there,” he whispered.
“Ah! He is—”
“Under the wall. I saw it fall on him. He is in there.”
“Oh, my poor boy!”
“I killed him. And all I wanted was to make him good.”
She put her arm under him and raised him, and he stood up.
“Come with me, dear boy,” said she.
“I can’t go away. I can’t leave him in there. Can’t you help me to see him?”
“Not now, but later, perhaps. Come with me now, and we will talk of him together.”
“He loved me, too. He did, didn’t he? And I killed him.”
“Yes, he did, he did. But you mustn’t say that you—”
“It wasn’t because I meant to harm him, was it? I wouldn’t have harmed him, would I?”
“No, no. It was just because you loved him, that was all.”
“Yes, that was it. That was all it was.”
He suffered her to lead him away, and he said nothing more, but repeated to himself, once or twice, “That was all it was.”
On my part, I spoke at length to the Blind Bowler, and gave him many directions; and he, having received at my hands a purse of gold, for use as I had instructed him, went his way; and we others then walked slowly back to the palace, where we rested on the steps, waiting, and Figli fell asleep with his head on my daughter’s shoulder.
When the sun was high in the east, people began to come in at the park gate, and the Blind Bowler, his first duty done, joined us on the palace steps. More people came, and the park began to be filled with them; they came before long in a steady stream, and at length the park was crowded with a great multitude, from the steps to the gate.
At a signal from myself, my party on the steps arose, and I addressed the people of Oogh. I told them who I was, and how my skin had come to be black; I told them that I was going away, and that their governor was resolved to go with me; that I meant to leave a governor who would help them rebuild their city, and lead them in the ways of goodness and mercy; that the person whom I had selected for that office was the boy known as Figli Babadag, whose soundness of heart was worth to them more than the wisdom of years; and that such wisdom as was necessary would be supplied by him who was called the Blind Bowler, a man who had known how to be cheerful under affliction. And I asked them to say whether they would have the boy Figli for their governor, and the Blind Bowler for his aide.
A shout of approval went up from the multitude.
“And will you,” said I, turning to Figli, “lead these people in the ways of goodness and mercy, and help them to forget?”
“If you think I can,” said Figli, standing up very straight, “I will try.”
“And will you,” said I to the Blind Bowler, “keep faithfully at his right hand, and never fail him?”
“That I will!” said the Blind Bowler. “Keep everlastingly at it, that’s the motto!”
“The great King, my father,” said I, turning again to the people, “will build your city ten times fairer than it was. I have given directions for your help already, and food and shelter will soon be at hand. Farewell! I leave you in the care of a blind man and a child! A sound heart and a cheerful mind, my friends, are better than an army. Farewell!”
The multitude shouted back farewell, and my friend Urban and myself each kissed Figli on the cheek; but my daughter kissed him on both cheeks and hugged him to her heart; and then we went down the steps, leaving the pale and beautiful boy and the blind man alone, and passed out across the park through a lane opened in the crowd, down into the city toward the city gate.
The Eight Tailors Stand Before Them in a Row
As we came to the last street corner before reaching the city wall, my daughter pulled forth a handful of figs from her pocket and divided them laughingly with Urban and myself; and at that moment a party of eight men filed solemnly from around the corner, and came to a stop before us in a row. It was the eight tailors. They bowed gravely, and the first one of them said:
“Excellency, we implore you to take pity upon us. Our master is gone, our occupation is gone, we are friendless and alone; we can live no longer in the city of Oogh.”
“What do you wish me to do?” said I.
“We beseech you to take us with you, to be your servants, your slaves, anything. We can sew, we can knit, we can—”
“But I am going into exile,” said I. “I am going to hide my hideous face from the eyes of the world.”
“Listen, most merciful one! It is known to us that the missing button needs only to be sewn on the doublet by a tailor, with the proper thread, in order that your skin may be white again. Nine tailors are allowed for the trial, and here are eight!”
“But I have neither the button nor the thread.”
“No matter! We will search until we find them, or else turn black ourselves in the trial. Have pity upon us, Prince!”
“Oh, father,” said my daughter, “do let the poor things come along with us.”
“Very well,” said I, whereupon we walked on, and the eight tailors gave a faint cheer and fell into line behind us.
They Meet the Three Blind Ballad Singers for the Last Time
As we passed through the city gate, a loud singing struck up just outside the wall, and we beheld the three blind ballad singers, in the midst of a dozen idlers, prancing up and down in their ridiculous dance. They were shouting out one of their ballads, as follows:
“The peddler came, the peddler went, the peddler lost his pack,
He came in honest walnut brown, he went away in black,
And ‘Oh!’ said the peddler, ‘I cannot come again,
For out of buttons ten, oh! only nine remain,
Only nine remain,’—”
My daughter laughed aloud, and at the sound of her voice one of the ballad singers cried out, “Ho! master blackface! Ballads or buttons, what will you buy?”
The idlers laughed, and the other two vagabonds sang out:
“Ballads or buttons! Buy, master blackface! Ballads or buttons!”
“What will you give for a button?” shouted the first, and he held up in my view a large ivory button, the identical one, beyond a doubt, which was missing from the doublet.
“A fig for a button!” I said, and held out one of the figs in my hand.
“A button for a fig! A bargain!” cried the first ballad singer, and taking the fig from me placed the button in my hand.
The idlers laughed at this nonsense, and we turned to go.
“Farewell, farewell!” cried the first ballad singer. “What do we say to the breaker of hearts who forgets her promise to marry?” The other two laughed, and began to sing.
We moved on down the road, followed by the tailors marching by fours, and as we departed we heard behind us the voices of the blind ballad singers for the last time, shouting out a song in this wise:
“She said that she wanted to marry all three,
Fiddle-de-dee! Fiddle-de-dee!
And it broke her heart that it could not be,
But ‘Oh!’ said she, ‘you must all agree
On one who shall be the fortunate he,
For only one can I marry!’
But oh! she would not wait to see,
And oh! she would not tarry,
For all that she said to the artless three
Was nothing but fiddle-de-dee,
Ah me!
Was nothing but fiddle-de-dee!”
THE FOURTH NIGHT
THE RAGPICKER AND THE PRINCESS
THE Queen said, “Domino!” very sweetly, and smiled at the Second Lady in Waiting, who was much chagrined.
“I don’t see how I could have been so stupid,” said the Second Lady in Waiting.
“Indeed, my dear,” said the Queen, kindly, “I don’t think you were nearly so stupid as usual.”
At this moment the Princess Dorobel, with Prince Bilbo and their son Bojohn, and the latter’s friend Bodkin, came in from the throne room, and the Princess Dorobel, standing behind the Queen’s chair, said:
“Mother, we are going to hear a story, and Bojohn insists that you—”
“Yes, grandmother!” said Bojohn. “We are going to ask Solario for another story, and you must come along too.”
“Dear me,” said the Queen. “I must put away the dominoes first.”
She stacked them neatly in the box, one by one, and when this was done she rose, and Bojohn took her arm and led her through the throne room where the King was engaged at chess with the Lord Chamberlain.
“My dear,” said the Queen to the King, “you had better come with us. We are going to—”
“It makes no difference to me,” said the King. “You can have the bishop if you want him. But I’ve got your queen! How do you like that? It’s your move! Go on, why don’t you move?”
“It’s no use, grandmother,” said Bojohn. “Come along.”
They left the King at his game, and proceeded to the room of Solario the Tailor in the tower. They were admitted by Solario himself.
In the center of the room stood Mortimer the Executioner. He was wearing an unfinished garment without any sleeves, fastened together with pins, and basted with white thread along the seams. He looked extremely foolish.
“Oh!” said Solario, covered with confusion. “Pray come in, come in! Her majesty herself! This is indeed an honor! I will find more chairs in the next room. I am overpowered by this honor. Pray be seated, your majesty. Mortimer, the fitting is postponed. Pray be seated, your majesty. I do not know when I have received the honor of such a visit. Pray be seated. Mortimer, bring in some chairs. I beg your majesty to take the other chair; it is far more comfortable. Mortimer, divest yourself; divest yourself.”
Mortimer, red with embarrassment, took off the unfinished garment and put on his old one. Solario ran from chair to chair, assisting each of the party to a seat.
“We have come for a story,” said Prince Bilbo, “and I hope that you will be so good as to—”
“We want to hear about Montesango’s Cave!” cried Bojohn.
“Or the Blind Giant!” said Bodkin.
“I beg your pardon,” said Solario, “perhaps her majesty would deign to—”
“Ask him for Montesango’s Cave, grandmother!” cried Bojohn.
“Dear me,” said the Queen, “I hardly know what to— It’s a very pleasant room you have here, Solario; do you ever play dominoes here? Dear me!”
“I’ll tell you what I should like,” said the Princess Dorobel. “I should like to hear how the goldsmith’s son won the Princess. Bojohn has been telling us about Alb and the Princess Hyla, and I understand there is a story, a love story—you know I dearly like love stories.”
“It isn’t precisely a love story,” said Solario, “but if her majesty will permit me, I will—”
“Dear me, yes,” said the Queen. “A very comfortable room it is, to be sure.”
Solario, after receiving the Queen’s permission to be seated, sat himself cross-legged on his table, and all of the others, Mortimer the Executioner, Bodkin, Prince Bilbo, Bojohn, the Princess Dorobel, and the Queen, drew up their chairs before him in a row.
“I will relate to you, seeing that you wish it,” said Solario, “the story told me by Alb, the goldsmith’s son, regarding the winning of the Princess Hyla. Shall I proceed?”
“I wish I had brought my knitting,” said the Queen, “but never mind.”
Solario picked up his shears, and gazing at them thoughtfully for a moment, cleared his throat.
“This, then,” said he, “is the story told me by Alb, regarding