He stood there one day, he stood there two days, but as for any one coming out to ask him what he wanted, there was no sign of it. When the third day dawned, however, the Green Emperor called to his servants and gave them a talking to that they were likely to remember. “How comes it,” said he, “that a man should be standing at my gates three days without any one going out to ask him what he wants? Is this what I pay you wages for?”
The servants of the Green Emperor looked up, and they looked down, but they had not one word to say for themselves. At last they went and called Aleodor and led him before the Emperor.
“What dost thou want, my son?” inquired the Emperor; “and wherefore art thou waiting at the gates of my court?”
“I have come, great Emperor, to seek thy daughter.”
“Good, my son. But, first of all, we must make a compact together, for such is the custom of my court. Thou must hide thyself wheresoever thou wilt three times running. If my daughter finds thee all three times, thy head shall be struck off and stuck on a stake, the only one out of a hundred that has not a suitor’s head upon it. But if she does not find thee thrice, thou shalt have her from me with all imperial courtesy.”
“My hope, great Emperor, is in the Lord, Who will not allow me to perish. We will put something else on this stake of thine, but not the head of a man. Let us make the compact.”
“I agree.”
So they made them a compact, and the deeds were drawn out and signed and sealed.
Then the daughter of the Emperor met him next day, and it was arranged that he should hide himself as best he could. But now he was in an agony that tortured him worse than death, for he bethought him again and again where and how he could best hide himself, for nothing less than his head was at stake. And as he kept walking about, and brooding and pondering, he remembered the pike. Then he took out the fish’s scale, looked at it, and thought of the fish’s master, and immediately, oh wonderful!—the pike stood before him and said: “What dost thou want of me, Boy-Beautiful?”