“Go on!” cried Bojohn; and Solario proceeded.
I rose to my feet (said Alb) and made off across the fields. I found a path which wound down to the village, and I was presently standing in the street. All the storks were gone, probably within doors for the night.
I set forth briskly to find the house of the One-Armed Sorcerer. I realized that the stork with the necklace was the Princess herself, and I knew that if she was to be saved from the Ragpicker I must act quickly.
I remembered the gilded wooden arm and hand, holding a lantern, which stood out from the one-armed man’s house, and it was only a matter of time to find it. I found it sooner than I expected. A light was burning dimly in the lantern, but the house was dark. There was no stork upon the housetop. I tried the handle of the door quietly, and to my surprise the door gave before me, and I pushed it open.
He Peeps into the Sorcerer’s Workshop
I found myself in a dark room, which I crossed quickly to a door at the other side. This door I opened on a crack, and through the crack I looked into a lighted room; a small room, evidently a workshop, cluttered about with glass vessels of strange shapes, metal machines of various sorts, wooden hoops curiously interlaced, charts of the skies, and great, brass-bound books; and at one side of the room was a forge and in the center a table.
Before this table was standing the one-armed man whom I had already seen. On the table, the stork with the necklace was lying on its side, perfectly still, and as I looked the old man plucked a feather from the stork’s wing and examined it carefully. He then cast it aside and plucked another, this time from the back. This also he tossed away, after examining it, and he then plucked a feather from the shoulder, and holding it up to the light gave a cry of pleasure, and without turning said, “Come in, Alb, I have been expecting you.”
I stepped into the room, and the old man greeted me with a friendly smile, and held up the feather.
“Do you see this?” said he.
I looked at it closely. At the point of the quill hung a single drop of blood.