“Oh, woe is me! woe is me!” cried the prince. “What can save us now?” and the faithful servants wept in unison.
Suddenly the listener said:
“Hark! be still, and I will listen.”
They were quiet at once, and he listened for a moment.
“I hear her bewailing her fate!” he cried.
Then the keen-sighted man turned his head from side to side and cried joyfully:
“I see her sitting on a rock, three hundred miles away. Our long friend can reach her in two strides.”
“Willingly,” cried the man, and he was up and at the foot of the rock before the others could look round. He took the princess in his arms, and she was back in the prince’s house just one moment before twelve, and they all sat down together and rejoiced.
As the clock struck twelve, the old queen came creeping along, looking very spiteful, as she thought she had really won this time; for was not her daughter three hundred miles away? She was not, as we know, and when the queen saw this she felt so angry she would like to have ordered all their heads to be chopped off.
“There must be some one here who is cleverer than I!” she screamed, and then she fell to crying, but it was of no use. The prince was firm as a rock, and she had to consent to the wedding; but she whispered to her daughter: