Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia (2 page)

"I think not, dear; the palace is quite full," said the queen. But the real reason was that she wanted Ricardo to marry her favourite Princess Jaqueline, and she did not wish the new princess to come in the way.

"As you like," said the king, who knew what was in her mind very well. "Besides, I see her own people coming for her. I'm sorry for her, but it can't be helped, and Dick is half-way home by now on the Shoes of Swiftness. I daresay he will not keep dinner waiting after all. But what a fright the boy has given me!"

At this moment a whirring in the air and a joyous shout were heard. It was Prince Ricardo flying home on his Seven-league Boots.

"Hi, Ross!" he shouted, "just weigh this beast's head. I've had a splendid day with a sea-monster. Get the head stuffed, will you? We'll have it set up in the billiard-room."

"Yes, Master Dick--I mean your Royal Highness," said Ross, a Highland keeper, who had not previously been employed by a Reigning Family. "It's a fine head, whatever," he added, meditatively.

{Ross weighing the beast's head: p28.jpg}

Prince Ricardo now came beneath the library window, and gave his parents a brief account of his adventure.

"I picked the monster up early in the morning," he said, "through the magic telescope, father."

"What country was he in?" said the king.

"The country people whom I met called it Ethiopia. They were niggers."

"And in what part of the globe is Ethiopia, Ricardo?"

"Oh! I don't know. Asia, perhaps," answered the prince.

The king groaned.

"That boy will
never
understand our foreign relations. Ethiopia in Asia!" he said to himself, but he did not choose to make any remark at the moment.

The prince ran upstairs to dress. On the stairs he met the Princess Jaqueline.

"Oh, Dick! are you hurt?" she said, turning very pale.

"No, not I; but the monster is. I had a capital day, Jack; rescued a princess, too."

"Was she--was she very pretty, Dick?"

"Oh! I don't know. Pretty enough, I daresay. Much like other girls. Why, you look quite white! What's the matter? Now you look all right again;" for, indeed, the Princess Jaqueline was blushing.

"I must dress. I'm ever so late," he said, hurrying upstairs; and the princess, with a little sigh, went down to the royal drawing-room.

Princess Jaqueline Drinks the Moon.

{The King and the Prince: p30.jpg}

When dinner was over and the ladies had left the room, the king tried to speak
seriously
to Prince Ricardo. This was a thing which he disliked doing very much.

"There's very little use in preaching," his Majesty used to say, "to a man, or rather a boy, of another generation. My taste was for books; I only took to adventures because I was obliged to do it. Dick's taste is for adventures; I only wish some accident would make him take to books. But everyone must get his experience for himself; and when he has got it, he is lucky if it is not too late. I wish I could see him in love with some nice girl, who would keep him at home."

The king did not expect much from talking seriously to Dick. However, he began by asking questions about the day's sport, which Ricardo answered with modesty. Then his Majesty observed that, from all he had ever read or heard, he believed Ethiopia, where the fight was, to be in Africa, not in Asia.

"I really wish, Ricardo, that you would attend to your geography a little more. It is most necessary to a soldier that he should know where his enemy is, and if he has to fight the Dutch, for instance, not to start with his army for Central Asia."

"I could always spot them through the magic glass, father," said Dick; "it saves such a lot of trouble. I hate geography."

"But the glass might be lost or broken, or the Fairies might take it away, and then where are you?"

"Oh,
you
would know where to go, or Mr. Belsham."

Now Mr. Belsham was his tutor, from Oxford.

"But I shall not always be here, and when I die--"

"Don't talk of dying, sire," said Dick. "Why, you are not so very old; you may live for years yet. Besides, I can't stand the notion. You must live for ever!"

"That sentiment is unusual in a Crown Prince," thought the king; but he was pleased for all that.

"Well, to oblige you, I'll try to struggle against old age," he said; "but there are always accidents. Now, Dick, like a good fellow, and to please me, work hard all to-morrow till the afternoon. I'll come in and help you. And there's always a splendid evening rise of trout in the lake just now, so you can have your play after your work. You'll enjoy it more, and I daresay you are tired after a long day with the big game. It used to tire me, I remember."

"I
am
rather tired," said Dick; and indeed he looked a little pale, for a day in the inside of a gigantic sea-monster is fatiguing, from the heat and want of fresh air which are usually found in such places. "I think I'll turn in; goodnight, my dear old governor," he said, in an affectionate manner, though he was not usually given to many words.

Then he went and kissed his mother and the Princess Jaqueline, whom he engaged to row him on the lake next evening, while he fished.

"And don't you go muffing them with the landing-net, Jack, as you generally do," said his Royal Highness, as he lit his bedroom candle.

"I wish he would not call me Jack," said the princess to the queen.

"It's better than Lina, my dear," said her Majesty, who in late life had become fond of her little joke; "that always sounds as if someone else was fatter,--and I hope there is not someone else."

The princess was silent, and fixed her eyes on her book.

Presently the king came in, and played a game with Lina at picquet. When they were all going to bed, he said:

"Just come into the study, Lina. I want you to write a few letters for me."

The princess followed him and took her seat at the writing table. The letters were very short. One was to Herr Schnipp, tailor to the king and royal family; another was to the royal swordmaker, another to the bootmaker, another to the optician, another to the tradesman who supplied the august family with carpets and rugs, another to his Majesty's hatter. They were all summoned to be at the palace early next morning. Then his Majesty yawned, apologised, and went to bed. The princess also went to her room, or bower as it was then called, but not to sleep.

She was unhappy that Dick did not satisfy his father, and that he was so careless, and also about other things.

"And why does the king want all these tailors and hatters so suddenly, telescope-makers and swordmakers and shoemakers, too?" she asked herself, as she stood at the window watching the moon.

"I
could
find out. I could turn myself into a dog or a cat, and go into the room where he is giving his orders. But that is awkward, for when the servants see Rip" (that was the dog) "in two places at once, they begin to think the palace is haunted, and it makes people talk. Besides, I know it is wrong to listen to what one is not meant to hear. It is often difficult to be a magician and a good girl. The temptations are so strong, stronger than most people allow for." So she remained, with the moon shining on her pretty yellow hair and her white dress, wondering what the king intended to do, and whether it was something that Dick would not like.

"How stupid of me," she said at length, "after all the lessons I have had. Why, I can
drink the moon
!"

Now, this is a way of knowing what anyone else is thinking of and intends to do, for the moon sees and knows everything. Whether it is
quite fair
is another matter; but, at all events, it is not
listening
. And anyone may see that, if you are a magician, like the Princess Jaqueline, a great many difficult questions as to what is right and wrong at once occur which do not trouble other people. King Prigio's secret, why he sent for the tailor and the other people, was his own secret. The princess decided that she would not find it out by turning herself into Rip or the cat (whose name was Semiramis), and, so far, she was quite right. But she was very young, and it never occurred to her that it was just as wrong to find out what the king meant by
drinking the moon
as by listening in disguise. As she grew older she learned to know better; but this is just the danger of teaching young girls magic, and for that very reason it has been given up in most countries.

However, the princess did not think about right and wrong, unluckily. She went to the bookcase and took down her
Cornelius Agrippa
, in one great tall black volume, with silver clasps which nobody else could open; for, as the princess said, there are books which it would never do to leave lying about where the servants or anybody could read them. Nobody could undo the clasps, however strong or clever he might be; but the princess just breathed on them and made a sign, and the book flew open at the right place--Book IV., chapter vi., about the middle of page 576.

The magic spell was in Latin, of course; but the princess knew Latin very well, and soon she had the magic song by heart. Then she closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Then she threw open the window and drew back the curtains, and put out all the lights except two scented candles that burned with a white fire under a round mirror with a silver frame, opposite the window. And into that mirror the moon shone white and full, filling all the space of it, so that the room was steeped in a strange silver light. Now the whole room seemed to sway gently, waving and trembling; and as it trembled it sounded and rang with a low silver music, as if it were filled with the waves of the sea.

Then the princess took a great silver basin, covered with strange black signs and figures raised in the silver. She poured water into the basin, and as she poured it she sang the magic spell from the Latin book. It was something like this, in English:

"Oh Lady Moon, on the waters riding, On shining waters, in silver sheen, Show me the secret the heart is hiding, Show me the truth of the thought, oh Queen!

"Oh waters white, where the moon is riding, That knows what shall be and what has been, Tell me the secret the heart is hiding, Wash me the truth of it, clear and clean!"

As she sang the water in the silver basin foamed and bubbled, and then fell still again; and the princess knelt in the middle of the room, and the moon and the white light from the mirror of the moon fell in the water.

Then the princess raised the basin, and stooped her mouth to it and drank the water, spilling a few drops, and so she
drank the moon
and the knowledge of the moon. Then the moon was darkened without a cloud, and there was darkness in the sky for a time, and all the dogs in the world began to howl. When the moon shone again, the princess rose and put out the two white lights, and drew the curtains; and presently she went to bed.

{The Princess drinks the Moon: p41.jpg}

"Now I know all about it," she said. "It is clever; everything the king does is clever, and he is so kind that I daresay he does not mean any harm. But it seems a cruel trick to play on poor Ricardo. However, Jaqueline is on the watch, and I'll show them a girl can do more than people think,"--as, indeed, she could.

After meditating in this way, the princess fell sleep, and did not waken till her maid came to call her.

"Oh! your Royal Highness, what's this on the floor?" said the faithful Rosina, as she was arranging the princess's things for her to get up.

"Why, what is it?" asked the princess.

"Ever so many--four, five, six, seven--little shining drops of silver lying on the carpet, as if they had melted and fallen there!"

"They have not hurt the carpet?" said the princess. "Oh dear! the queen won't be pleased at all. It was a little chemical experiment I was trying last night."

But she knew very well that she must have dropped seven drops of the enchanted water.

"No, your Royal Highness, the carpet is not harmed," said Rosina; "only your Royal Highness should do these things in the laboratory. Her Majesty has often spoke about it."

"You are quite right," said the princess; "but as there is no harm done, we'll say nothing about it this time. And, Rosina, you may keep the silver drops for yourself."

"Your Royal Highness is always very kind," said Rosina, which was true; but how much better and wiser it is not to
begin
to deceive! We never know how far we may be carried, and so Jaqueline found out.

For when she went down to breakfast, there was the king in a great state of excitement, for him.

"It's
most
extraordinary," said his Majesty.

"What is?" asked the queen.

"Why, didn't you notice it? No, you had gone to bed before it happened. But I was taking a walk in the moonlight, on the balcony, and I observed it carefully."

"Observed what, my dear?" asked the queen, who was pouring out the tea.

"Didn't you see it, Dick? Late as usual, you young dog!" the king remarked as Ricardo entered the room.

"See what, sir?" said Dick.

"Oh, you were asleep hours before, now I think of it! But it was
the
most extraordinary thing, an unpredicted eclipse of the moon! You must have noticed it, Jaqueline; you sat up later. How the dogs howled!"

"No; I mean yes," murmured poor Jaqueline, who of course had caused the whole affair by her magic arts, but who had forgotten, in the excitement of the moment, that an eclipse of the moon, especially if entirely unexpected, is likely to attract very general attention. Jaqueline could not bear to tell a fib, especially to a king who had been so kind to her; besides, fibbing would not alter the facts.

"Yes, I did see it," she admitted, blushing. "Had it not been predicted?"

"Not a word about it whispered anywhere," said his Majesty. "I looked up the almanack at once. It is the most extraordinary thing I ever saw, and I've seen a good many."

"The astronomers must be duffers," said Prince Ricardo. "I never thought there was much in physical science of any sort; most dreary stuff. Why, they say the earth goes round the sun, whereas any fool can see it is just the other way on."