King Bony at the appointed hour did not wait for Prince Unexpected, but sent to ask him why he did not appear. Finding the door locked, the servants knocked at it vigorously, and the spittle answered them from the middle of the room in the prince’s voice, “Anon.” The servants carried this answer to the king; he waited, waited, no prince; he therefore again sent the same servants, who heard the same answer: “Anon!” and carried what they had heard to the king.
“What’s this? Does he mean to make fun of me?” shouted the king in wrath. “Go at once, break the door open, and conduct him to me!”
The servants hurried off, broke open the door, and rushed in. What, indeed? There was nobody there, and the spittle on the pane of glass was splitting with laughter at them. Bony all but burst with rage, and ordered them all to start off in pursuit of the prince, threatening them with death if they returned empty-handed. They sprang on horseback and hastened away after the prince and princess.
Meanwhile Prince Unexpected and the princess, Bony’s daughter, were hurrying away on their spirited horse, and amidst their rapid flight heard “Tramp, tramp,” behind them. The prince sprang from the horse, put his ear to the ground, and said, “They are pursuing us.”
“Then,” said the princess, “we have no time to lose.” Instantly she transformed herself into a river, changed the prince into a bridge and the horse into a raven, and divided the grand highway beyond the bridge into three roads. Swiftly on the fresh track hastened the pursuers, came to the bridge, and stood stupefied; they saw the track up to the bridge, but beyond it disappeared, and the highway divided into three roads. There was nothing to be done but to return, and they came with naught. Bony shouted with rage, and cried out: “A bridge and a river! It was they. How was it that ye did not guess it? Back, and don’t return without them!” The pursuers recommenced the pursuit.
“I hear ‘Tramp, tramp!’” whispered the princess, Bony’s daughter, affrightedly to Prince Unexpected, who sprang from the saddle, put his ear to the ground, and replied: “They are making haste, and are not far off.”
That instant the princess and prince, and with them also their horse, became a gloomy forest, in which there were roads, byroads, and footpaths without number, and on one of them it seemed that two riders were hastening on a horse. Following the fresh track, the pursuers came up to the forest, and when they espied the fugitives in it, they hastened speedily after them. On and on hurried the pursuers, seeing continually before them a thick forest, a wide road, and the fugitives on it; now, now they thought to overtake them, when the fugitives and the thick forest suddenly vanished, and they found themselves at the selfsame place whence they had started in pursuit. They returned, therefore, again to Bony empty-handed.