“If with this mirror you can find the hidden evil thing and can restore my strength again, then there is nothing too great that I own which may not be yours for the asking.”
“There is but one thing I want,” said Huathia. “For I love Suso the gentle and would marry her.”
The rich man thought long after this speech, stroking the hair of Suso who sat at his knee, for it had not entered into his mind that his daughter might be the gift which the youth demanded as his price. But looking at the maiden he saw that her eyes were cast down, though for a moment they had looked up swiftly as Huathia spoke. Then, too, it was certain that since the youth had been there, the song of the birds was louder in the thicket and the green of the trees brighter.
So the father said thoughtfully: “If you find the cause of the trouble that is upon me and relieve it so that I am healed again, then you may have my daughter for your wife, though you must promise me that you will stay in this place.”
That, Huathia promised readily enough, and stooped to Suso and kissed her, and having done so, went away to the dark pool in the woods to sleep, at the very moment the stepmother came out of the house to join her husband and his daughter.
III
As it happened that night, there was a thin new moon, and the youth slept but little because of the croaking noise made by the frogs. Presently, full awake, he sat up, and it seemed to him that the air was full of noise, not only of frogs but of the hooting of owls and the whirring of bats, and looking he saw the strange sight of a great white toad with two heads, and presently about that fearful thing other things gathered. From rock and hole came unclean creatures, abominable serpents and centipedes and great gray spiders, and all these gathered in a circle, the two-headed toad in the centre. With wide-open eyes Huathia watched, although the sight of so much that was noisome came near to benumbing and stupefying him, and incomplete shapes seemed to be looking at him with evil eyes from the black depth of the forest.
Soon the owl began to mourn and the song fell into words and the youth heard this:
“Who knows where hides our queen? Hoo! Hoo!”
And first one creature and then another answered: