Prince Abderraman, with terrified eagerness, gave a great leap, landed on a rock, and shouted as loudly as he could over the limitless heath:
"Marrabataësan donai Adáma!"
The words rang out through the air without effect. No blossom arose. The sun was sinking rapidly toward the horizon and the wind was growing still.
The prince, fearing he should not give the right turn to the magic command, repeated it time after time saying the words in different order and with different expression. But in vain.
At last, at a certain way of saying the words, it seemed to him that a bit of heather on a distant mound had lifted itself up to listen, but sunk immediately back, undistinguishable among the multitudinous blossoms.
"The sun is going down," said the Lapp woman. "If we do not quickly find the right manner of saying the words, the frost will come, and then it will be too late."
By this time the sun's red beams had sunk quite down to the horizon. All nature was silent. A cool and damp evening mist, the forerunner of the frost, spread itself like a veil over moor and mound. All living things which had ventured to bloom for a short time in Lapland were now doomed to death.
Prince Abderraman was pallid with terror. His voice choked, and he could scarcely articulate the one untried arrangement of the magical words:
"Marraba donai Adáma taësan."
Behold! On the distant hillock, a heather blossom raised itself on its stalk. It grew as rapidly as does the lily which the Afghanistan fairies cause to spring forth in the red dawn, when they tap on the blue mountains with their magic wands.