‘Give the Princess back her eyes and her [p139 hearing and her voice,’ said Sep again. But the mole only gnashed his wicked teeth and snarled.
And then in a minute the squirrels fell on the mole and killed it, and Sep thanked them and rode back to the palace, for, of course, he knew that when a magician is killed, all his magic unworks itself instantly.
But when he got to his Princess she was still as deaf as a post and as dumb as a stone, and she was still crying bitterly with her poor blind eyes, till the tears ran down her grass-green gown with the red roses on it.
‘Cheer up, my sweetheart,’ he said, though he knew she couldn’t hear him, and as he spoke the wind came in at the open window, and spoke very softly, because it was in the presence of the Princess.
‘All right,’ it whispered, ‘the old villain gave us the slip that journey. Got out of the mole-skin in the very nick of time. He’s a wild boar now.’
‘Come,’ said Sep, fingering his sword-hilt, ‘I’ll kill that myself without asking it any questions.’
So he went and fought it. But it was a most uncommon boar, as big as a horse, with tusks half a yard long; and although Sep wounded it it jerked the sword out of his hand [p140 with its tusk, and was just going to trample him out of life with its hard, heavy pigs’-feet, when a great roar sounded through the forest.
‘Ah! would ye?’ said the lion, and fastened teeth and claws in the great boar’s back. The boar turned with a scream of rage, but the lion had got a good grip, and it did not loosen teeth or claws till the boar lay quiet.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Sep when he came to himself.
‘Oh yes, he’s dead right enough,’ said the lion; but the wind came up puffing and blowing, and said: