She had just risen from a large rock by the water’s edge and stood shaking the clear drops from her finger-tips, when the sound of voices startled her. She turned; and there through the trees behind her rode on prancing horses a party of huntsmen, their spears and knives glittering in the sunlight.
She attempted to hide in a neighbouring thicket. But it was too late: one of the party had spied her.
“Yeho!” he called gaily to his comrades. “What have we here?” And he pointed to where poor Ruth stood. In a moment he had ridden up beside her.
“What do you here?” he asked in a harsh, gruff voice. “Drinking from the King’s own stream and eating berries and other fruits in the King’s own woods! Who gave you permission to wander here?”
“No one gave me permission,” answered the frightened girl. “I did not know that I was in any King’s land. I am a poor Seeker, seeking for the Blue Bird and David. Have you seen either? Surely, if you have met them, you will tell me in which direction they were going? I did not know that I was taking that which belongs to another, and I am sorry with all my heart. Ask the King to pardon me. I will go on my way and will eat no more fruit nor drink more water till I am sure that I am beyond the great King’s border lands.”
“Ask the King to pardon you, yourself,” answered the huntsman roughly. “For here he comes.”
As he spoke he pointed toward an open meadow, across the smooth surface of which a man came riding on a great black horse. As he drew near, Ruth saw what a strange looking person he was. His face was round and full, and its colour was that of burnished bronze. His hair was of the colour of flame, and it grew in shaggy locks that hung about his neck like tongues of fire hanging upside down. His eyes were like burning live coals under thick, bushy eyebrows of a dull gray, like ashes after the fire has gone out of them. His voice when he spoke sounded like the roar of a blacksmith’s bellows.
Poor Ruth was frightened, but, summoning all her courage, she answered by telling him for whom she sought.
“A Blue Bird, indeed!” said the King. “If my huntsmen come across any such, you may be very sure they will make quick work of it! It would make a dainty dish to set before their King. As for that young David, he had best keep off my land. All who are found trespassing upon my kingdom are put to death at once. It is only because you are a girl, and a very fair one at that, that your life has been spared; these men of mine would have killed you long before I came upon them, had you been that young David of whom you speak, instead of the pretty lass that you are! As it is,” he added with a rough, coarse laugh, looking toward his huntsmen, “we will spare her and take her to the Palace. She will make a merry plaything for us all; and, if the fancy takes me, she shall become my wife and the Queen of my vast kingdom.”