It was a churlish remark, but the young girl had got so accustomed to the cur's strange ways, that she did not resent it; she even allowed the man to kiss her hands, just as the mongrel had been wont to lick them, which shows how careful we ought to be in avoiding bad habits.
It was then that the rolling, rollicking moon came peeping through the window with a broad smile on her chubby round face, just as if she was approving of the sight she saw.
On the morrow, when the Princess awoke, she looked for the cur everywhere, but, strange to say, he was nowhere to be found. She ransacked the whole house, but he had disappeared; she peered through the barbicans, glanced down from the battlements; she mounted to the top of the highest tower, strained her eyes, and gazed on the surrounding country, but the dog was nowhere to be seen.
A sense of loneliness and languor came over her. It was so dreary to be shut up in those large and lofty halls, that, at times, the very sound of her steps made her shiver. Her very food became distasteful to her.
From that day—being quite alone—she longed to have, at least, a little child which she might love, and which might help her to beguile the long hours of solitude. Every day her maternal instincts grew stronger within her, and every evening, as she stood leaning on the marble window-sill, she prayed the kind genii, who had taken pity on her when she had been wandering on the moor, and almost dying of weariness, of hunger and of thirst, to be kind to her, and bring her a tiny little baby to take the place of her lost cur, for life without a child was quite without an aim.
Months passed; the blossoms of the trees had fallen, the fruit had ripened, the harvest had been gathered, the days had grown shorter, the sea was now always lashed into fury, all the summer-birds had flown far away, the others were all hushed; only the raucous cries of the gulls were heard as they flew past the tower where she dwelt. The days had grown shorter and shorter, the wind was cold, the weather was bleak, when at last her wish was granted.
It was on a dreary, stormy night in early February; the Princess was lying on her bed, unable to sleep, when all at once the window was dashed open, and a huge stork flew in. It was the very stork, they say, that, years afterwards, was so fatal to the town of Aquileja, not very far from there. At that moment the poor Princess was so terrified that she quite lost her senses; but when she came back to herself, she found a tiny baby—not an hour old—lying in bed by her side.
The wind was blowing in a most terrific way. The Quarnero, which is always stormy, was nothing but one mass of white foam. The huge waves dashed together, like fleecy rams butting against each other. The billows ever rose higher, whilst the waters of the lowering clouds overhead came pouring down upon the flood below. All the elements seemed unchained against that lonely tower. The clouds came pouring down in waterspouts upon it; the breakers dashed against it; the two ravines, the big and the little Plas Kenizza—formed by the genii as they had slid down the mountains—were now huge torrents, rolling down with a roaring noise against the white walls of the tower, making it look more like an enormous lighthouse on a rock than a princely castle. The thunder never stopped rumbling; the forked lightning darted incessantly down upon the highest pinnacles and the whole stronghold, from its battlements down to its very base. Such a terrific storm had never been known for ages; in fact, not since the days when the mighty Julius had been murdered.
By the lurid light of the incessant flashes, the Princess first saw her infant boy; and she heard its first wail amongst the deafening din of the falling thunder-bolts. With motherly fondness, she pressed the baby to her breast; whilst her heart was beating as if it were about to break. What a thrill of unutterable bliss she felt that moment; but, alas! all her joy passed into sorrow when she perceived that her beautiful baby—beautiful, at least, to a mother's eyes—had two dear little dog's ears.
Dogs' ears are by no means ugly—although they are occasionally cropped. Why was it, then, that the Princess saw them with horror and dismay?