“You have much gold,” he suggested, “and yet that pearl is worth more to a woman than all the gold and jewels of the earth. It will bring her everything her heart desires.” She shook her head.
“I cannot buy all the guards,” she told him. “Some of them are old and faithful servants of the King. You must find some other way.”
“You speak of ways as if they were easy to find,” he grumbled, and his heart again felt heavy in his breast.
“They should be—for a wise man,” she tauntingly replied. “Surely you must have left your wits in the cave too. But I must be off. The King gives a banquet to-night in honor of his bride, who is called the Fairest Creature of the Flowery Kingdom. And she likes that better than the name of Queen.”
“Stay,” cried the wizard quickly. “The way is found. Know you the weed with the purple flower that has crimson dots on its petals—a weed with glossy, pointed leaves that grows by every wayside and sends out a strange perfume after the sun goes down?” The Queen nodded. “Well, squeeze the juice from the stem of this weed. A few drops of that in the wine to-night and all the castle will fall into sleep so deep that though I rode away on a prancing steed no one would hear me. See that my keepers drink of that wine. Then open my door, unloose my chains and leave the rest to me.” The old woman cackled in her thin, shrill voice. Suddenly she stopped and looked at him suspiciously.
“But you will return?” she questioned. “You will bring that precious pearl to me? If you stayed away you would be searched for in every corner of the land. You could not escape my vengeance. No matter how clever you were, the officers of the King would one day find you—even as they found you this time—and when you were caught your head would be brought back to court. Remember my words, Cave Man, if you play me false.”
“Only let me get out, and if I do not return you are welcome to the head of the wisest man in the kingdom,” he told her. “But you must give me seven days—three to go, three to come back, and one day to persuade the dragon to give me the pearl, for he is a jealous monster and ugly when he is roused. It will not be an easy matter to get him to give me his treasure, and no one can steal it from him.
“After the sun has set on the seventh day I will stand before you. Wearing my magic mantle, I will slip by the soldiers and the guards like a puff of wind, and no one will see me pass, no one hear my footsteps. And because this time I will have all my charms with me, no man can harm me. And I will bring you the greatest gift that was ever given to a woman.”
Still chuckling to herself, the old woman unlocked the door of the little cell and slipped away. When she had gone the wizard laughed until his chains rattled. Then he lay down on the hard floor and fell into a peaceful sleep.
That night the banquet in the King’s palace was a merry affair, and when the rejoicing was at its height the Queen-Mother came in and said: