"Carabi! Carabo! Two minutes are left you of becoming like me," shouted the horse.
On hearing him they all wept, except the three princes who rose, exclaiming:
"Treacherous magician, God wills that you pay for your crimes."
The horse rose on two legs and after a terrific neigh shouted: "Carabi! Carabo!" and immediately they all resumed their original forms. The horse gave a jump in order to rise in the air and commenced his flight, but this time he was not alone; for when waving his tail it caught up good little Arthur, winding itself round his body. The boy clung to it in order not to fall, and when he tried to find out where he was, he discovered himself in the air more than a thousand yards from the ground. Then he yelled with all the strength that fear gives, without paying any attention to the neighing of the horse which, turning its head, said to him: "Leave go, or I will dash your brains out with a kick."
But little Arthur remembered that if he let go he would certainly be killed, while it was by no means sure that the horse could reach him with his feet, because he had climbed up to the top part of the tail, where he hung on with one hand, while with the other he caught hold of the other end, so that he sat on the doubled-up tail as on a trapeze.
The horse landed out half a dozen kicks, which only hurt the clouds; he turned his head in order to see where to bite that customer who had got the better of him; but his wings hindered him, and the only other vengeance he could take was to snort. This he did, making such a noise that it could have been heard for miles around.
"What a storm!" exclaimed little Arthur.
"That is the wind I swallow in my flight," said the horse.
"That is not wind, it must be a hurricane let loose."
Then the horse began to descend towards the earth, passing through clouds and breaking up fogs, until, at dawn, he arrived at a lovely palace whose roof of gold and precious stones opened of its own accord to let that singular horse pass through. He alighted on the floor of an enormous room in the palace, and when on firm ground said: