Once upon a time, in a noble realm to the west of the Golden Plain, there towered to the sky a solitary height of such majesty and grave beauty that the realm became known through the world as the Kingdom of the Mountain. Mighty, snow-capped, and serene it rose beyond the little woods and willow-bordered streams.
Now it came to pass that a king ruled in the land who had been left with two little motherless children, the Prince Ariel and the Princess Leoline. The Princess was the elder of the two and, though only three years old, considered herself quite a grown-up personage; as for the little Prince, he was but a child in arms. From a window of their chamber in a tower-top, the children were wont to look forth over the land to the mountain rising afar, now blazing white and bright in the clear midwinter air, now half concealed in summer’s hazy veil.
And now, with the suddenness of a tempest shattering the quiet of the night, a wicked nobleman, Babylan by name, rose against the good King and challenged him to do battle for his throne.
Now it chanced that the wise old nurse to whom the King had entrusted the Princess Leoline had for some time feared that all was not well with her master’s cause, so on the day of battle she climbed to a high tower-top to see what she could see. Already from afar, through the dull still morning, could be heard the sullen tumult of the fray. Closer and closer advancing, hour by hour louder and louder growing, the tide of battle approached the very gates of the stronghold.
Suddenly, enveloped in a cloud of dust, the first stragglers from the King’s defeated army burst from a little wood and came hastening down the road toward the castle. Knowing only too well that all was lost and that the troops of Babylan would be soon battering at the gate, the good nurse caught up Leoline and hurried down the curving stair to warn the guardians of Ariel.
Neither Prince nor guardian, however, could she find. The castle was already in confusion, people were running hither and thither, an alarm bell was wildly clanging, and in the soldiers’ court a runaway was gasping out his story to a handful of frightened listeners. Well aware that her first duty must be the safety of the little Princess sleeping on her shoulder, the old nurse abandoned the search for Ariel and fled from the castle with her charge. And because she had been born in a village of the mountain and knew the region to be inaccessible and wild, the brave nurse turned her steps toward the height.
All night long, down lonely lane and royal highway, by woodland path and river road the brave woman hurried through the dark war-shaken land. The voice of great waters, roaring in the night under turreted bridges, beat upon her ears as she fled; messengers galloped by, spurring fast; and here and there a signal beacon flamed afar on some high crest. But presently the swarming stars grew pale, and streaks of day appeared in the east.
Pausing at a lonely farm at the end of the lowland way, the nurse begged a crock of milk and a morsel of bread for herself and Leoline.
To the east, beyond the hills, rose the great snowy summit of the mountain, outlined against a clear green sky of dawn.
And now the pleasant fields gave way to rocky wind-swept pastures, lying at the foot of a road winding and climbing along a great ridge of the mountain to a tiny village at a valley’s height. To the right of this road, towering steeps of rock soared to a wild, snow-mantled crest; to the left, the mountain side fell away, a terrible precipice, to a torrent all afoam. Up this road fled the old nurse, half carrying, half dragging the weary and bewildered Leoline.