“You need not go,” said the Old Man, “it is too late. This evening, after they had gone to bed, I did what your wife has so often asked me to do.”
“What was that?” they cried out together.
“Why, I took means to stop their quarrelling.”
Then he told them how he had done it, showed them the tweezers with which he had worked the magic, showed them also the six golden balls containing the six princes.
“There are only six,” said the farmer’s wife.
“Ah, yes, Prince Charlie ceased quarrelling when told to do so, therefore he is still sleeping in bed.”
“He, then, must be King in his father’s place,” said Prince Claude, but he did not mean what he said, for he had quickly formed the wicked plan of doing to Prince Charlie what the Old Man had done to the other princes.
When every one was in bed, and the house quite still and silent, Prince Claude went to the room where the Old Man slept, quietly took the magic tweezers and the wallet, and in a very few minutes had secured poor Prince Charlie in his own golden ball, and placed it with the other six in the wallet which he then placed by the Old Man’s side again.
At six o’clock, when the farmer roused the household, it was discovered that not only had the Old Man gone, but Prince Charlie had disappeared. Prince Claude pretended he knew nothing about it, and soon gladly set off for the palace, for he was the one who must now be King. Poor little Marie went about her work very sadly, taking long walks when she had time to do so, and asking every one she met if they had seen any one answering to the description of Prince Charlie.
Almost a year had gone by, when, one day, as she wandered about further from home than usual, she heard some one moaning, and going towards the spot from whence the sound came, she saw a man tied to a tree, his face all swollen and looking full of agony.