Every window gleamed
Something jangled on the floor; and the guard stooped to pick up a knife fallen from his belt. Instantly, Ivan saw his chance. Holding his bag, bottom up, on the window seat, he loosened the strings, letting the gold fall in a heap in the black shadow. By the time the guard had adjusted his belt again, Ivan was out of the window, climbing down the vine.
Next morning, everything was a-buzz at the palace. The servants and shepherds, filing around the Birthday Room, barely glanced at the gorgeous jewels. Every eye was fixed on a glittering pile of gold-pieces in a glass case. They were worth a king’s fortune, people said. The Princess could buy with them anything in the world her heart desired,—castles or coaches, jewels or gowns. And the mystery of it was, no one knew who had sent them. They had suddenly appeared in the middle of the night. The whole court was alive with conjectures.
Ivan, filing by with the others, said never a word; but his heart thumped with pride and happiness. Through a half-open door he could see Anastasia herself using four of the great round gold-pieces as dishes for her dolls. Ivan beamed. To-morrow, he decided, the Princess should have a birthday as well as to-day.
As soon as it was dark, he hurried to his hut, drew out the magic loaf from its hiding-place, and bit and bit till he had a bagful of gold-pieces again. Then he put on his invisible belt and ran to the palace. Everything happened almost as before; and he got away, down the vine, and back to his sheep before any one was the wiser.
On the window-seat next morning the Princess found the shining heap. And if the court had been excited before, now it was in an uproar of astonishment. Hereafter, the King ordered, two guards should stand hidden beside the window to discover who it was that brought the gold.
So night after night for a week Ivan left the gold-pieces. And morning after morning the guards reported to the King that no one had been there. The window, they said, had suddenly swung open; and a bag, jumping unaided from the sill, had emptied itself on the seat below, disappearing through the window as magically as it had come. At last the King, tired of the mystery, declared that he would watch himself.
The eighth night was dark and rainy, and Ivan slipped over the soggy ground. When he got to the entrance of the park, he realized with a dreadful sinking of his heart that he had forgotten to put on the magic belt. He turned to go back, but the thought of the dismal, stormy walk made him suddenly bold. The palace-guards, he reflected, would be keeping close to shelter, a night like this. He could easily escape them, and crawl up the vine unsuspected. Once at the window, he had only to watch his chance, pop in the gold, and fly back in the darkness to his sheep.