“Here beside me stands the only magician in the case, and the only art, the only trick or charm which was exercised by him was that sweet power we call love. When first he set eyes upon his four-footed brother locked in the crystal cell of Schneeboule’s Grotto, he pressed his nose again and again against its icy wall in vain attempt to know his kinsman, and turned away with a cry of sorrow to find that his keen scent could not penetrate to him. I cannot tell you how great was his joy when I laid Fuffcoojah stiff and stark upon my divan, for I knew not then the scheme ripening in Bulger’s mind. But later, all was plain enough. The loving dog leaves his master’s breast and carries his true and tender heart over to where Fuffcoojah lies, raises the pelt, crawls in beside him, and presses his warm breast firm and hard against his brother’s ice-locked heart, and warms him into life again, then wakes me and tells me what he hath done.
“This, Royal Gelidus and most noble Koltykwerps, is the only art that hath been used to bring Fuffcoojah back to life again, and to call it black is to slander the sunshine, rail at the lily, and call the sweet breath of heaven a vile and detestable thing!”
When I had ended my speech I saw that Schneeboule had been weeping, and that several of her tears stopped in their course down her cheeks hung there sparkling like tiny diamonds in the soft light of the alabaster lamps, where the chill air of Gelidus’ palace had turned them into ice.
And therefore when his frigid Majesty said that my words had touched his heart, and bade me ask for a gift from his hand, I said,—
“O cold king of this fair icy domain, let those tears that now hang like tiny jewels on Schneeboule’s cheeks be brushed into an alabaster box and given to me. I covet no other guerdon!”
“Even if I did not love thee, little baron,” cried King Gelidus with an icy smile, “I would be persuaded; but loving makes easy believing. Go, Phrostyphiz, and bid one of the princess’s women brush those tiny jewels that hang on Schneeboule’s cheek into an alabaster cup and bestow them upon the little baron.”
Scarcely had this been done when Fuffcoojah thrust his head out from under the pelt and, fixing his eyes pleadingly upon me, thrust out his tongue and opened and shut his mouth with a faint, smacking noise. Quick as a flash it dawned upon me that these signs meant that Fuffcoojah was hungry!
And then, as I suddenly remembered that the Koltykwerps were strictly a meat-eating people, that only meat was to be had in their chill domain, quarried almost like marble itself from nature’s great refrigerators, a gasp escaped my lips, and I whispered,—
“Oh, he must die! He must die!” My words had not missed the keen ears of Princess Schneeboule.
“Speak, little baron,” she cried, “why, why, must little Fuffcoojah die? What dost mean by such a saying?” And when King Gelidus and Schneeboule had heard me voice my fear that he would die rather than feed on meat, they both became very heavy-hearted.