“My other councillor, who is a very learned man and loves to discuss questions of race, manners and customs with strangers, advises me to let thee live for several weeks, at least, until he has had an opportunity to get some valuable information from thee. Now, I am a quiet and peace-loving King, for nature by surrounding my dominions with such a network of rivers, and giving us the power to leap over them, makes it next to impossible for an enemy to follow us. Therefore, Little Man All Head, it is my royal will that for the present no harm come to thee!”
“Thanks, most powerful and graceful jumper in this or any other world!” said I, with a very low bow. “I accept my life at thy hands in order to use it to make known thy goodness and greatness in every land I shall pass through.”
My delicate flattery touched King Gâ-roo very perceptibly. He smiled and nodded his little doll head in the friendliest manner. But Megâ-Zaltô’s fierce, little face was screwed up in a thousand wrinkles. I felt within me that he was firmly resolved to do me injury.
Now, there was another interruption. A shrill, piping baby-voice suddenly rang out in a series of angry screams, while a score of other voices in soft, soothing tones could be heard as if endeavoring to comfort the screamer.
I turned my eyes in the direction of the voices. To my surprise and delight I saw coming towards me one of the female Umi-Lobas, advancing timidly with light and graceful hops, like a sparrow on the greensward. Her head and face looked for all the world like some of the wax dolls I had seen in Paris, only she was a trifle paler than they.
It was the beautiful princess, Hoppâ-Hoppâ. She seemed to be in a very fretful and petulant humor, and showed her peevishness in every movement.
Nothing pleased her. She pouted, hung her head, and threw her baby-arms about, upon the most trivial provocation.
As I learned afterwards, this all proceeded from her unwillingness to marry the lean, bony Megâ-Zaltô, who was violently in love with her, and to whom the King, in a moment of some great contentment, had rashly promised the princess in marriage, and as King Gâ-roo had in doing so taken the Umi-Lobas’ vow: “May I never be able to jump farther than the length of my nose, if I break my vow,” he dared not break his word, and, of course, the old, thin, bony, wrinkled Megâ-Zaltô insisted upon his sticking to the bargain.
The effect of all this was to throw the beautiful princess Hoppâ-Hoppâ into a deep melancholy. In fact, she refused absolutely to partake of any food for so long a while that everybody said sadly, “She will die!”
King Gâ-roo was beside himself with grief. But, as Megâ-Zaltô had no blood, he couldn’t feel any pity for either father or daughter, and insisted that the King should stick to his bargain with him.