“Yes,” said the King, kindly; “you might have searched through all the kingdoms of the earth and air, and yet never have found that precious seed, had you not loved your brother so much as to let yourself be driven like a horse in the plow for his sake. Keep the Golden Ivy-seed in this little pearl box; be humble, gentle and patient, and sooner or later your brother will be free.”
As he spoke, he fastened a little pearl box to her girdle with a jewelled clasp, and kissed her, and bade her farewell. And as Princess Hilda went away, she fancied she had somewhere heard a voice like this King’s before; but where or when she could not tell.
It was not long before she arrived at the mouth of the passage by which she had descended to the kingdom of the Gnomes, and there she found Tom the cat awaiting her. He got up and stretched himself as she approached, and when he saw the pearl box at her girdle, he said:
“So far, all goes well; but now we must see whether or not Prince Frank has kept the fire going: there is no time to be lost, so catch hold of my tail, and let us be off.”
With that, he stretched out his tail, as straight as the handle of a saucepan; Princess Hilda took hold of it, and away they went back through the passage again, and were out at the other end in the twinkling of an eye.
VIII
THE MAGIC FIRE
NOW, after Prince Frank had seen Princess Hilda and the cat disappear up the trunk of the tall pine-tree, he had sat down rather disconsolately beside the fire, which blazed away famously, blue, red, and yellow. Every once in a while he took a fagot from the pile and put it in the flame, lest it should go out; but he was very careful not to step outside the circle which the cat had drawn with the tip of his tail. So things went on for a very long time, and Prince Frank began to get very sleepy, for never before had he sat up so late; but still Princess Hilda and the cat did not return, and he knew that if he were to lie down to take a nap, the fire might go out before he waked up again, and then Rumpty-Dudget would have blackened Henry’s face all over with one of the burnt logs, and he never could be saved. He kept on putting fresh fagots in the flame, therefore, though it was all he could do to keep his eyes open; and the fire kept on burning red, blue and yellow.