“No, your Majesty; I knew it not.”
“Then know it now, and know, too, that thou art the man. To thee I give my daughter, together with half my kingdom. No, no—not a word. Thou deservest her. May you be happy!”
The prisoner, almost dumb with astonishment, almost dazed with joy, knelt and kissed the princess’s white hands, then looked into her eyes and said:
“Ah, well it is for me that I saw you not until now, for I should have been miserably discontented until you were mine!”
THE FLYING SHIP
A Russian Tale
Once upon a time there was a Princess who was always wanting something new and strange. She would not look at the princes who came to woo her from the kingdoms round about, because, she said, they all came in the same way, in carriages which had four wheels and were drawn by four horses. “Why could not one come in a carriage with five wheels?” she exclaimed petulantly, one day, “or why come in a carriage at all?” She added: “If one came in a flying ship I would wed him!”
So the King made proclamation that whoever came to the palace in a flying ship should wed the Princess, and succeed to the kingdom. As the Princess was very beautiful and the kingdom very rich, men everywhere began to try to build ships that would fly. But that was not so easy. They could build ships that would sail—but flying was quite another thing!