Then she, too, stepped in, and together they sailed away through the air.
"He'll never resist my charms this time," she said to herself. But she found out her mistake very soon, I can tell you. You see, although the fairy could change her form at will, her feet always remained the same, and the King caught sight of two ugly webbed feet, that looked as if they belonged to a griffin; so he was not deceived at all, and knew her to be the Desert Fairy, in spite of the disguise.
On and on they went, and once the King chanced to look downward. There he saw a castle built of bright polished steel, and on the balcony stood All-fair weeping very bitterly.
All-fair chanced to look upward, and she spied the chariot drawn by the snow-white swans. Although it passed along very quickly, she could see the King seated inside with a lovely maiden, and as she did not know it was the Desert Fairy, she felt very jealous indeed.
Soon the chariot alighted at a lonely palace, shut in by a wall of emeralds on one side and the sea on the other.
Well, the King just cast his eyes around the place, and made up his mind not to stay there long.
"I'll escape somehow," he said to himself; and he did, too, before very long.
He pretended to be in love with the Desert Fairy, and this pleased and flattered her so much that she began to treat him very kindly indeed. She even allowed him to walk alone on the seashore for half an hour each day.
One morning as the King stood upon the beach he was surprised to see a charming mermaid rise up from the water.