As soon as the old nurse saw that Rosetta was asleep, and that nothing could awaken her, she went to the sailors, and by means of bribes and threats she obliged them to do exactly as she bade them. Under her directions they carried the mattress upon which Rosetta lay up to the deck. The nurse looked about for Fifine, but could not find the little dog anywhere, for it was hidden under the coverlet. “No matter,” said she. “I wished to keep the little animal for my daughter, but it is probably hiding somewhere about the ship, and I will find it later.”
She then made the sailors take up the mattress and throw it overboard into the sea. This they did without awakening either Rosetta or Fifine. They then set all sail and sped on toward the shores of the Peacock country, which could already be seen before them. The wicked nurse felt sure that it would not be long before the mattress would become heavy with water and would sink, so she and her daughter need trouble themselves no more about the hated Rosetta.
Meanwhile the King of the Peacocks was growing more and more impatient to see his bride. Watchers had been placed upon the seashore to bring him news the moment the sails of the returning ship were seen.
It was on the twenty-first day after the messengers had departed that these watchers hastened to the palace, all out of breath, and told the King that the ship was approaching.
The King called his attendants about him, and hurried down to the seashore.
The vessel had already come to land. The wicked nurse had dressed her daughter in the most magnificent of Rosetta’s clothes, which she wore as a toad might wear the dress of a fairy. The nurse had also bedecked her with the jewels belonging to the princess, and last of all she had thrown a silver veil over her, as though to guard her beauty from the sun.
As the prince saw this magnificently dressed person approaching him, he assumed it must be his bride. He hastened to meet her, and threw back the veil that covered her face, but when he saw the ugliness beneath the veil he almost fainted. He at once decided that the two princes had deceived him; that they had tricked him into sending for their sister and promising to marry her because no other king had been willing to take such a hideous creature for his wife.
Filled with rage, he sent his guards to take the princes and throw them into the deepest and darkest of the palace dungeons. He had given his word that he would marry their sister, and this word he could not break, but he promised himself that upon the day when he was married to this creature the two brothers should die.
The princes, meanwhile, had also heard that the ship had returned. They had no doubt that their sister was on board, and they had at once made ready to appear before the King, to be loaded with wealth and honours as he had promised them.