Ting-a-ling

by Frank R. Stockton

Trumkard did not encourage him much, and proposed that they should continue their journey; but the Prince would not listen to such advice, and as soon as he had finished his breakfast, he went back to the palace in order to try and see his Princess. But all the doors were fastened, and it was evident that there was no admission for the public that day. A great crowd stood around the gates, and they were very much excited about something.

The Prince learned from their discourse that it was thought that the Princess who played so splendidly, could certainly sing as well, and there was a suspicion that the Prime Minister, who had governed the people so long, was afraid of her powers, and had sent her away. Indeed, a certain Habbed-il-Gabbed, who kept a goat's-cheese shop, and who had a cousin who was one of the royal-black-eunuch-guards, had heard from him that the Princess had certainly disappeared, and that the public suspicions were very likely to be correct.

At this news the Prince smote his breast, and became very sad; and all that day and night, and the next day until sundown, he hung around the palace, hoping to get in. Trumkard was with him a great part of the time, and brought him cakes and things to keep him from starving. In the early evening of the second day, the Prince, while walking round the palace, saw a boy come out of a back-alley gate, to empty some ashes. Rushing at him, he seized him, and demanded of him news of the Princess. The boy, however, was deaf and dumb, and could not answer him; and the Prince perceiving this, and being very expert in making signs, asked him in that way what had become of his lady-love. The boy then replied by a sign representing a heavy door, with four locks, a big bar, and a chain; and a black eunuch with a drawn sword, asleep before it.

Then the Prince tore his hair, and groaned, and went home to Trumkard. But he could not sleep; and when the moon arose, he got up and wandered far away beyond the walls of the city, until he came to the borders of the sea. There he saw, roaming about upon the sands, numbers of water-women, who every now and then blew upon conch-shells, looking about them in every direction, as if they expected some one to answer them. When the Prince perceived them, he slipped softly from rock to rock, keeping himself well concealed, until he came near one of them, when he made a sudden rush and caught her, while all the others, with loud cries, dashed into the sea. The one he had captured, struggled and cried piteously; but, in as few words as possible, he entreated her to be quiet, and to understand that if she was looking for a Princess, he could tell her where she was, or at least where she had been. The water-woman then became quiet, and the Prince told her all he knew, and how anxious he was to find the beautiful Princess. The good woman of the sea then told him that she and her companions had come up on the shore every night for a year, hoping that the Princess would stray that way, and be induced by them to return to her ocean home. Then she told him who the Princess really was, and thus her story ran.

When the late mighty King, Barradin, was quite young, he married a daughter of the ocean, at which his father, much incensed, drove him from the court. He retired far from men, and a little son was born to him. In a few years his wife died, and he was left alone with his son. When this boy grew up, he also married a water-woman, and, having so much of their blood in his veins, he went down to live with his wife's relations, leaving his father to do as well as he could by himself, until he ascended the throne. When Barradin became king, he did not marry a queen, or cut off people's heads, or go to war, or build palaces; but he took his chief delight in music, and encouraged the love of it among his people. So it was in the hope that one of his descendants might some day sit upon the throne, that he composed the magical music; for he knew that no one but a descendant of the ocean-folk could sing that music, and none but those of his blood could read it, for there was magic in his family.

When the music was finished, the King died. His mother was a sorceress, and a very wicked old woman, who, when her son was dead, gave it out that she herself was dying; for she had now lived so long that people had begun to suspect something, and to think that she had too much to do with magic. So she pretended to die, and was buried in the royal vault; and at night she came out and went far away from the city to a great cave in a lonely country where dwelt the demons and evil spirits who were her servants. She now spent her life in wickedness. She it was who put it into the heads of so many sensible people to contend for the crown, and it was with joy that she saw them carried out to the asylum. Many other evil thoughts she put into the hearts of the people, and she was forever imagining and doing mischief.

When this young Princess, her great-grandchild, was born, Mahbracca (that was the name of the old sorceress) was very much troubled, and used all available means to destroy the infant; but her efforts were vain, for the people of the ocean protected her from all enchantments.

As the Princess grew up, she loved to ramble on the white sands, and she was once perceived there by a party of ladies from the palace, who had persuaded her to come with them to their royal home, where she had now been for a year. She knew not who she was, nor did her friends at the palace; and her relations of the ocean had always hoped that some day she would return to them. Now the sorceress feared that some day she would happen to sing the magical music, and be made queen; and she hated the poor girl so much, that she would not have had this happen for all the world. Therefore it was, no doubt, that she had sent the Nimshee, in order to prevent the Princess from ever exercising the wonderful gift she had inherited.

This much the water-woman told the Prince, but as to what had now become of the Princess, she did not know; but there were others of her people who knew more than she did, and she would inquire of them. Taking the Prince by the hand, she led him out upon a headland that projected some distance out into the sea, and blew four times loudly upon her conch-shell. A great heaving and swelling of the waters was presently seen, and in a few moments an elderly personage emerged from the waves, and walked carefully up to the rock on which they stood. He was a curious-looking individual, and, as the water-woman informed the Prince, a powerful lord of the ocean.

He was wrapped in an old-fashioned cloak, made of the finest quality of sea-weed, and drawing this closely around him, he requested his fair cousin of the sea to be as quick as possible in her business with him, as it was not prudent for him to be in the air much at his age. So the water-woman briefly related to him what the Prince had told her.