“I--that is--thou poor miserable creature,” said Dirk, half pitying, half wishing to turn the subject, “leave off making a beast of thyself awhile, and tell me who thou art.”
“I have made no beast of myself, most noble Earl of the Frisians, for so you doubtless are. I was made a beast of,--a horse of, by an enchanter of a certain land, and my sister a mare.”
“Thou dost not say so!” quoth Dirk, who considered such an event quite possible.
“I was a prince of the county of Alboronia, which lies between Cathay and the Mountains of the Moon, as fair once as I am foul now, and only less fair than my lost sister; and, by the enchantments of a cruel magician, we became what we are.”
“But thou art not a horse, at all events?”
“Am I not? Thou knowest, then, more of me than I do of myself,”--and it ate more grass. “But hear the rest of my story. My hapless sister was sold away, with me, to a merchant; but I, breaking loose from him, fled until I bathed in a magic fountain. At once I recovered my man’s shape, and was rejoicing therein, when out of the fountain rose a fairy more beautiful than an elf, and smiled upon me with love.
“She asked me my story, and I told it. And when it was told, ‘Wretch!’ she cried, ‘and coward, who hast deserted thy sister in her need. I would have loved thee, and made thee immortal as myself; but now thou shalt wander, ugly, and eating grass, clothed in the horse-hide which has just dropped from thy limbs, till thou shalt find thy sister, and bring her to bathe, like thee, in this magic well.’”
“All good spirits help us! And you are really a prince?”
“As surely,” cried the thing, with a voice of sudden rapture, “as that mare is my sister”; and he rushed at mare Swallow. “I see, I see, my mother’s eyes, my father’s nose--”
“He must have been a chuckle-headed king that, then,” grinned Dirk to himself. “The mare’s nose is as big as a buck-basket. But how can she be a princess, man,--prince, I mean? she has a foal running by her here.”
“A foal?” said the thing, solemnly. “Let me behold it. Alas, alas, my sister! Thy tyrant’s threat has come true, that thou shouldst be his bride whether thou wouldst or not. I see, I see in the features of thy son his hated lineaments.”