"Now, carry me in pursuit of yonder ship, and mind you swim fast and well," he exclaimed.
"Master, I obey," said the dolphin, who recognized in him a magician. "But, look for yourself—blue sky above, blue water below, and not a sail upon the sea."
The prince looked, and in truth there was no ship to be seen; so, ordering the dolphin to convey him to the nearest landing-place, he soon reached the shores of a beautiful country, where flags were flying, and all the inhabitants were dressed in holiday clothes. Over the wharf was an arch of most lovely flowers, and five hundred little girls were strewing the roads with orange blossoms.
"What is taking place?" asked the cannibal brother of the people around the wharf.
"Where have you been, pray?" said they scornfully, "not to know that our king brings home his bride to-day!"
Then the ship came in sight and the rejoicings began. The cannibal brother had no sooner laid eyes upon his sister than a new longing to drink her blood came over him; and he set about plotting how he could get hold of her, no easy matter, since the palace was guarded night and day by twenty white bull-dogs of the fiercest sort, besides the usual soldiers and attendants. So he took service with a butcher near the town, and made a bag full of little meat-balls, each one containing a drop of deadly poison. One day his master sent him to the palace to carry Queen Eglantine's sweetbreads and mutton-chops. "Now," thought the brother, "I shall get inside;" but he was mistaken, for the sweetbreads and mutton-chops were taken from him at the gate, and passed on through twenty different hands till they reached the cook. As no outsider whatever was allowed to penetrate the inner palace walls, behind which the new queen lived surrounded by every luxury, the cannibal brother had to wait many days for an opportunity to get a sight of her. Meantime his appetite was gaining terribly, and he went to the blacksmith and had all his teeth framed in iron, the better to enjoy his horrid meal.
At last King Charming was summoned to meet a neighboring monarch about a right of way for his armies across a certain peninsula; and, with many injunctions to the queen not to admit any stranger during his absence, he reluctantly set out. No sooner was he out of sight than the pretended butcher's boy hastened to assume his own princely clothing, and, ringing boldly at the castle gate, told the servants to announce to the queen that her brother had arrived, bearing messages from her father and mother. He sent in a golden locket containing likenesses of both the king and queen, his parents, which convinced Queen Eglantine that his tale was true. So, joyfully, she ran forth to meet him, and would have cast herself upon his neck, but that the trained bull-dogs rushed between, growling most horribly.
"Come here, pretty fellow, nice fellow," said the cannibal brother, coaxingly; but the dogs only opened their jaws wider than before and growled defiance.
"Give them these little dainties, sister," said the wily prince, producing his poisoned meat-balls. "They are some that I always carry for my own pets."
The innocent queen called the dogs one after another to her side, and fed them with the fatal balls, which they ate, licking her white hand gratefully. At once, as the poison began to work, they all lay down in a row, and became as quiet as they had been before ferocious. The queen led her brother into an inner room, and bade him sit upon her silken couch. The prince laughed to himself, for now, thought he, the hour has come for my coveted meal. But he was seized with the notion to go into another room in order to file his teeth, which were becoming rather dull.