No sooner had she wished it than there he stood; but he looked at no one but her. “Did I not tell you that misfortune would come of it if you wished for me?” said he. “Now, I must leave you and go where you are not likely ever to see me again.”
Then the princess would have spoken, but he gave her no time for that. He snatched up the napkin, and, becoming a Raven once more, he flew through the open window and across the tree-tops and was gone. At the same time her golden coach vanished, and, the coachman and footmen became so many birds and flew away, so that not one of her fine things was left.
The poor princess wept and cried for a whole day and a whole night. But at the end of that time she dried her eyes, and, tucking up her skirts, started off into the wide world to find her dear prince again.
Well, she travelled on and on and on for more days than she could count, and till she had been over nearly all of the world, but in all that time she could learn no news of the prince nor of whither he had gone. At last one day, about nightfall, she came to a little hut in a deep forest, and in the hut sat an old woman with hair as white as snow.
“What do you want, child?” said the old woman; “do you not know that this is Death’s house, and that if he returns and finds you here he will kill you? I tell you that he spares neither the young nor the old, the plain nor the handsome. As for me, I am his grandmother.”
But all this was one to the princess, and went in at one ear and out of the other; she could no longer drag one foot after the other, so there she must stay even if Death should find her when he came home.
Then she told Death’s grandmother all that had happened to her, and Death’s grandmother took pity on her because she was so pretty and so tired. She gave the princess something to eat and then hid her in the tall clock that stood in the corner, so that Death might not find her when he came home.
By and by in came Death and hung up his great scythe behind the door. “Hu-u-u-u!” cried he, “I smell Christian blood in the house for sure.”
“Christian blood, indeed!” said his grandmother, “as though a Christian would come to this house if he had anywhere else to go! But now I think of it, a crow flew overhead to-day, and dropped a bone down the chimney. I threw it out as soon as I could, but perhaps that is what you smell.”
So Death said nothing more, but sat down to supper and ate heartily, for he had had a long journey that day.