behind him. “Ah, it is she!” he thought, and turning quickly, clasped and kissed—bearded Ylyas (Eligas, or Elias), prince of the wild Reussen, who was his uncle. The new comer returned the embrace heartily, and then said:
“You are a good lad to receive your mother’s brother with as much transport as a lover his sweetheart, but you have been gazing at a bit of sorcery down there, and that accounts for a great deal. Try to forget what you have seen, or your royal head may soon be displayed from the towers of Muntabure, where the lovely witch lives with that old heathen, her father.”
“She is a real person then,” cried Ortnit quickly. “She must be mine. I would stake my life to win her.”
“What is that you say?” answered Ylyas. “A king’s head for a woman’s curl! That would make a new song for the minstrels to sing in Lombardy.”
“How am I to find her?” asked the king. “Tell me the story, which I suppose some wandering fiddler has sung.”
“Why, nephew,” replied the elder man, “I have seen with my own eyes and have heard with my own ears what I am now going to tell you. It is no minstrel’s tale I am going to amuse you with. Machorell is the name of the maiden’s father, and he is ruler of Syria, Jerusalem, and other eastern lands. When I was returning from my pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre, I arrived one evening at the gates of Castle Muntabure, weary and footsore, and the Saracen porter had compassion on me, took me in, and showed me no little kindness. Then it was that I saw the wicked heathen king, whose skin is as black as that of a Moor, and also the beautiful princess Sidrat. I heard it said that he intended to marry his own daughter, when her sick mother was dead, and that was why he cut off the heads of all the wooers who came to ask for the princess’s hand in marriage. Seventy-two skulls already grin from the towers of Castle Muntabure. Say, bold youth, do you intend to offer your head to the Moorish king as the seventy-third?”
“I have been through many a strange adventure before now,” returned Ortnit, “and I shall try to get the better of the infidel.”
On the following day the notables of the realm were summoned to a council. The king told them that he intended to make a campaign in Syria, and desired their help in calling together his army. After many attempts to dissuade Ortnit from such a fantastic enterprise, all was at last settled as he wished, even to the appointment of the governors and deputy-governors in whose hands the country was to be left during his absence. The only person besides the king who carried his point was Ylyas, who insisted on his right to go to Syria or anywhere else he chose, and expressed his firm determination not to lose sight of his nephew.
As the council were separating, Zacharis appeared. He was Lord of Apulia and Sicily, a heathen, but a faithful comrade of the king. When he heard what they had settled, he at once announced his readiness to provide a ship to take the armament across the sea, for which offer the king thanked him warmly. On the advice of Ylyas, it was agreed to put off the expedition until spring, when the weather would be more favourable for a sea voyage.
So the king had to smother his impatience as best he might. He was very lonely, for he knew that no one quite sympathized with him. His mother, indeed, did her best to persuade him to give up the enterprise, by setting its dangers plainly before him, and telling him how ridiculous it was to be so much in love with a woman whom he had only seen in a vision, and about whose character and disposition he knew nothing. He fretted against the idleness and uniformity of the life he was leading, and determined to ride up into the mountains for something to do. When he went to take leave of his mother, she begged him not to go, for fear of some accident happening to him; but, finding that he was not to be dissuaded, she took a ring from her finger, saying, “If you are determined to go, take this ring. The gold is thin, and the stone of little apparent value, but it possesses a magic power that could not be bought with a kingdom. Go where you like in the wild mountains, but first of all ride down the road to the left, that leads over the heights to the lake, then sideways under a wall of rock to the valley. Look about till you find a spring gushing out of a rock, and, close to it, a great lime-tree; there you will have a more wonderful experience than any you could imagine.”
Her voice trembled with nervous excitement, and her tearful eyes seemed to entreat him to ask her no questions.
Ortnit rode away. He forbade any of his serving-men to accompany him, saying that he wished to be alone. The cool fresh air blowing about his temples cheered him, and chased away the fumes that troubled him. The sun began to sink as he entered the wood, where he had to dismount and lead his horse, because of the low-growing branches of the trees. The night was so dark that he lost his way, and did not succeed in getting out of the wood again till daybreak. When he gained the open, he rested a short time to let his horse graze in the meadow, and to eat his own breakfast. After that he set out again for the mountains, and at length reached the wall of rock his mother had mentioned. He rode along the foot of it, as she had told him, till he heard the gurgling of the spring, and, on turning a corner, saw the lime before him. It was an immense tree, and early as it was in the year, it was already covered with leaves and blossom. Ortnit found on looking around, that it was in a wide meadow, on which grass, clover, and many-coloured flowers grew in rich abundance, while the number of birds that nested in the lime-tree was quite unheard of. A curious feeling came over the king, it seemed as if he must have heard those birds’ song of welcome in his childhood, and all at once he remembered a ditty his mother used to sing. He began to hum it softly.
It was a song about all the little birds, and the music each made after its kind, sweet as a summer day, and all in honour of Alberich, king of the wood.
“Alberich—king of the wood,” Ortnit was sure that he had once heard more about him than that, but what it was he could not tell. Had he not played with a child of that name once? As he was puzzling over these confused memories of the past, he happened to glance at his mother’s ring; the stone in it was shining like a fire, and lighting up the face of a lovely child, who lay asleep in the grass close by.
“Poor boy,” said the royal hero, compassionately, “I wonder who brought you to this lonely place! How anxious your mother must be about you! I cannot leave you here to die of hunger or fall a defenceless prey to the wild beasts.”
He had already fastened his horse to a branch, and stooping down, he lifted the boy in his arms to carry him away; but to his intense surprise he received such a blow on the chest that he not only let the child fall, but himself tumbled on his back. He had scarcely recovered his footing, when he found the child holding him so tight that he had to exert all his strength not to be overthrown. It was a strange sight to see the tall king and the wonderful child, wrestling furiously together. Flowers and grass were trodden under foot, shrubs and low bushes broken and torn, when Ortnit at last flung his opponent on the ground, and drew his sword to slay him. But, angry as he was, he could not do it when the little thing gazed at him so entreatingly, and begged in such a sweet soft voice that he would not murder him when he was defenceless, but would accept, in exchange for the life he granted him, a valuable suit of armour, consisting of helmet, shield, and coat of mail of wrought gold and silver, and last not least, the sword called Rosen, whose blade had been rendered strong and durable in dragon’s blood. When Ortnit demanded a hostage for his opponent’s good faith, the little creature told him that hostages were impossible to find in that wild mountain country, but Ortnit might trust to his word, for he also was a king, and ruled over a far wider domain than Lombardy, though truly his realm lay beneath the earth instead of upon it, and his subjects were employed day and night in working in metals. Finding that no hostage was necessary, or indeed procurable, the hero allowed his prisoner to get up. But before the latter went to get the armour he had promised, he said that he would like to have the ring Ortnit was wearing, and that he scrupled the less to ask for it, as it did not appear to be of great value.
“I cannot give it to you,” replied Ortnit, “for it was a present from my dear mother, who would never forgive me if I parted with it.”
