Presently they went to the palace together, and the instant the black slave girl caught sight of them she knew her perfidy had been discovered, and she fled from the palace, never to return. Not long afterward the prince married his beloved, and there was rejoicing throughout the realm. So they at last had the desire of their hearts, and may you have your desire also.
THE MYSTERIOUS VOICE
ONCE upon a time there was a man who above all other things desired to accumulate wealth. Day and night he thought of nothing else. Fortune favored him, and as time went on he acquired more and more property until he became very rich. Now that he had so much to lose he thought it would be a terrible thing to die and leave all his possessions behind. So he made up his mind to seek a land where there was no death.
He got ready for the journey, took leave of his wife, and started. Whenever he came to a new country the first question he asked was whether people died in that land. If he was told that they did, he continued on his quest. However, he at last reached a country where they said the people did not even know the meaning of the word death. The traveler was delighted to hear this. “But surely,” said he, “there must be great numbers of inhabitants in your land if no one ever dies.”
“No more than in most lands,” they responded; “for we would have you know that from time to time a voice is heard calling to this one or that, and whoever is called always goes away and never comes back.”
The man was amazed that the people should be so stupid as to follow the voice when they knew that if they obeyed its summons they would never return. He journeyed back to his home, got all his possessions together, and went with his wealth and his wife and children to dwell in the country where the people did not die. To be sure they disappeared one after the other in response to the call of that mysterious voice; but he made up his mind that when he or any of his family heard the voice they would pay no heed to it, however loud its appeal.
After they were settled in their new home and had put everything in order, he warned his wife and children that they must on no account listen to or obey a strange voice they might some day hear calling them.
For several years everything went well with them and they lived happily in their new home. But one day when they were all sitting together around the dining-table the man’s wife suddenly started up, exclaiming: “I am coming! I am coming!”
She looked around the room for her fur coat, and she had picked it up and was putting it on, when her husband took firm hold of her hand and restrained her, saying: “Don’t you remember what I told you? If you have heard a voice calling to you, stay where you are unless you wish never to return.”