Indian Fairy Tales (21 page)

When the vizier's son returned, and found the fire lighted, the horses
securely fastened, and the bags of muhrs lying altogether in a heap,
but no prince, he did not know what to think. He waited a little while,
and then shouted; but not getting any reply, he got up and went to the
brook. There he came across the footmarks of his friend. Seeing these,
he went back at once for the money and the horses, and bringing them
with him, he tracked the prince to the lake, where he found him lying
to all appearance dead.

"Alas! alas!" he cried, and lifting up the prince, he poured some water
over his head and face. "Alas! my brother, what is this? Oh! do not die
and leave me thus. Speak, speak! I cannot bear this!"

In a few minutes the prince, revived by the water, opened his eyes, and
looked about wildly.

"Thank God!" exclaimed the vizier's son. "But what is the matter,
brother?"

"Go away," replied the prince. "I don't want to say anything to you, or
to see you. Go away."

"Come, come; let us leave this place. Look, I have brought some food
for you, and horses, and everything. Let us eat and depart."

"Go alone," replied the prince.

"Never," said the vizier's son. "What has happened to suddenly estrange
you from me? A little while ago we were brethren, but now you detest
the sight of me."

"I have looked upon a fairy," the prince said. "But a moment I saw her
face; for when she noticed that I was looking at her she covered her
face with lotus petals. Oh, how beautiful she was! And while I gazed
she took out of her bosom an ivory box, and held it up to me. Then I
fainted. Oh! if you can get me that fairy for my wife, I will go
anywhere with you."

"Oh, brother," said the vizier's son, "you have indeed seen a fairy.
She is a fairy of the fairies. This is none other than Gulizar of the
Ivory City. I know this from the signs that she gave you. From her
covering her face with lotus petals I learn her name, and from her
showing you the ivory box I learn where she lives. Be patient, and rest
assured that I will arrange your marriage with her."

When the prince heard these encouraging words he felt much comforted,
rose up, and ate, and then went away gladly with his friend.

On the way they met two men. These two men belonged to a family of
robbers. There were eleven of them altogether. One, an elder sister,
stayed at home and cooked the food, and the other ten—all brothers—
went out, two and two, and walked about the four different ways that
ran through that part of the country, robbing those travellers who
could not resist them, and inviting others, who were too powerful for
two of them to manage, to come and rest at their house, where the whole
family attacked them and stole their goods. These thieves lived in a
kind of tower, which had several strong-rooms in it, and under it was a
great pit, wherein they threw the corpses of the poor unfortunates who
chanced to fall into their power.

The two men came forward, and, politely accosting them, begged them to
come and stay at their house for the night. "It is late," they said,
"and there is not another village within several miles."

"Shall we accept this good man's invitation, brother?" asked the
prince.

The vizier's son frowned slightly in token of disapproval; but the
prince was tired, and thinking that it was only a whim of his friend's,
he said to the men, "Very well. It is very kind of you to ask us."

So they all four went to the robbers' tower.

Seated in a room, with the door fastened on the outside, the two
travellers bemoaned their fate.

"It is no good groaning," said the vizier's son. "I will climb to the
window, and see whether there are any means of escape. Yes! yes!" he
whispered, when he had reached the window-hole. "Below there is a ditch
surrounded by a high wall. I will jump down and reconnoitre. You stay
here, and wait till I return."

Presently he came back and told the prince that he had seen a most ugly
woman, whom he supposed was the robbers' housekeeper. She had agreed to
release them on the promise of her marriage with the prince.

So the woman led the way out of the enclosure by a secret door.

"But where are the horses and the goods?" the vizier's son inquired.

"You cannot bring them," the woman said. "To go out by any other way
would be to thrust oneself into the grave."

"All right, then; they also shall go out by this door. I have a charm,
whereby I can make them thin or fat." So the vizier's son fetched the
horses without any person knowing it, and repeating the charm, he made
them pass through the narrow doorway like pieces of cloth, and when
they were all outside restored them to their former condition. He at
once mounted his horse and laid hold of the halter of one of the other
horses, and then beckoning to the prince to do likewise, he rode off.
The prince saw his opportunity, and in a moment was riding after him,
having the woman behind him.

Now the robbers heard the galloping of the horses, and ran out and shot
their arrows at the prince and his companions. And one of the arrows
killed the woman, so they had to leave her behind.

On, on they rode, until they reached a village where they stayed the
night. The following morning they were off again, and asked for Ivory
City from every passer-by. At length they came to this famous city, and
put up at a little hut that belonged to an old woman, from whom they
feared no harm, and with whom, therefore, they could abide in peace and
comfort. At first the old woman did not like the idea of these
travellers staying in her house, but the sight of a muhr, which the
prince dropped in the bottom of a cup in which she had given him water,
and a present of another muhr from the vizier's son, quickly made her
change her mind. She agreed to let them stay there for a few days.

As soon as her work was over the old woman came and sat down with her
lodgers. The vizier's son pretended to be utterly ignorant of the place
and people. "Has this city a name?" he asked the old woman.

"Of course it has, you stupid. Every little village, much more a city,
and such a city as this, has a name."

"What is the name of this city?"

"Ivory City. Don't you know that? I thought the name was known all over
the world."

On the mention of the name Ivory City the prince gave a deep sigh. The
vizier's son looked as much as to say "Keep quiet, or you'll discover
the secret."

"Is there a king of this country?" continued the vizier's son.

"Of course there is, and a queen, and a princess."

"What are their names?"

"The name of the princess is Gulizar, and the name of the queen—-"

The vizier's son interrupted the old woman by turning to look at the
prince, who was staring like a madman. "Yes," he said to him
afterwards, "we are in the right country. We shall see the beautiful
princess."

One morning the two travellers noticed the old woman's most careful
toilette: how careful she was in the arrangement of her hair and the
set of her kasabah and puts.

"Who is coming?" said the vizier's son.

"Nobody," the old woman replied.

"Then where are you going?"

"I am going to see my daughter, who is a servant of the Princess
Gulizar. I see her and the princess every day. I should have gone
yesterday, if you had not been here and taken up all my time."

"Ah-h-h! Be careful not to say anything about us in the hearing of the
princess." The vizier's son asked her not to speak about them at the
palace, hoping that, because she had been told not to do so, she would
mention their arrival, and thus the princess would be informed of their
coming.

On seeing her mother the girl pretended to be very angry. "Why have you
not been for two days?" she asked.

"Because, my dear," the old woman answered, "two young travellers, a
prince and the son of some great vizier, have taken up their abode in
my hut, and demand so much of my attention. It is nothing but cooking
and cleaning, and cleaning and cooking, all day long. I can't
understand the men," she added; "one of them especially appears very
stupid. He asked me the name of this country and the name of the
king. Now where can these men have come from, that they do not know
these things? However, they are very great and very rich. They each
give me a muhr every morning and every evening."

After this the old woman went and repeated almost the same words to the
princess, on the hearing of which the princess beat her severely; and
threatened her with a severer punishment if she ever again spoke of the
strangers before her.

In the evening, when the old woman had returned to her hut, she told
the vizier's son how sorry she was that she could not help breaking her
promise, and how the princess had struck her because she mentioned
their coming and all about them.

"Alas! alas!" said the prince, who had eagerly listened to every word.
"What, then, will be her anger at the sight of a man?"

"Anger?" said the vizier's son, with an astonished air. "She would be
exceedingly glad to see one man. I know this. In this treatment of the
old woman I see her request that you will go and see her during the
coming dark fortnight."

"Heaven be praised!" the prince exclaimed.

The next time the old woman went to the palace Gulizar called one of
her servants and ordered her to rush into the room while she was
conversing with the old woman; and if the old woman asked what was the
matter, she was to say that the king's elephants had gone mad, and were
rushing about the city and bazaar in every direction, and destroying
everything in their way.

The servant obeyed, and the old woman, fearing lest the elephants
should go and push down her hut and kill the prince and his friend,
begged the princess to let her depart. Now Gulizar had obtained a
charmed swing, that landed whoever sat on it at the place wherever they
wished to be. "Get the swing," she said to one of the servants standing
by. When it was brought she bade the old woman step into it and desire
to be at home.

The old woman did so, and was at once carried through the air quickly
and safely to her hut, where she found her two lodgers safe and sound.
"Oh!" she cried, "I thought that both of you would be killed by this
time. The royal elephants have got loose and are running about wildly.
When I heard this I was anxious about you. So the princess gave me this
charmed swing to return in. But come, let us get outside before the
elephants arrive and batter down the place."

"Don't believe this," said the vizier's son. "It is a mere hoax. They
have been playing tricks with you."

"You will soon have your heart's desire," he whispered aside to the
prince. "These things are signs."

Two days of the dark fortnight had elapsed, when the prince and the
vizier's son seated themselves in the swing, and wished themselves
within the grounds of the palace. In a moment they were there, and
there too was the object of their search standing by one of the palace
gates, and longing to see the prince quite as much as he was longing to
see her.

Oh, what a happy meeting it was!

"At last," said Gulizar, "I have seen my beloved, my husband."

"A thousand thanks to Heaven for bringing me to you," said the prince.

Then the prince and Gulizar betrothed themselves to one another and
parted, the one for the hut and the other for the palace, both of them
feeling happier than they had ever been before.

Henceforth the prince visited Gulizar every day and returned to the hut
every night. One morning Gulizar begged him to stay with her always.
She was constantly afraid of some evil happening to him—perhaps
robbers would slay him, or sickness attack him, and then she would be
deprived of him. She could not live without seeing him. The prince
showed her that there was no real cause for fear, and said that he felt
he ought to return to his friend at night, because he had left his home
and country and risked his life for him; and, moreover, if it had not
been for his friend's help he would never have met with her.

Gulizar for the time assented, but she determined in her heart to get
rid of the vizier's son as soon as possible. A few days after this
conversation she ordered one of her maids to make a pilaw. She gave
special directions that a certain poison was to be mixed into it while
cooking, and as soon as it was ready the cover was to be placed on the
saucepan, so that the poisonous steam might not escape. When the pilaw
was ready she sent it at once by the hand of a servant to the vizier's
son with this message "Gulizar, the princess, sends you an offering in
the name of her dead uncle."

On receiving the present the vizier's son thought that the prince had
spoken gratefully of him to the princess, and therefore she had thus
remembered him. Accordingly he sent back his salam and expressions of
thankfulness.

When it was dinner-time he took the saucepan of pilaw and went out to
eat it by the stream. Taking off the lid, he threw it aside on the
grass and then washed his hands. During the minute or so that he was
performing these ablutions, the green grass under the cover of the
saucepan turned quite yellow. He was astonished, and suspecting that
there was poison in the pilaw, he took a little and threw it to some
crows that were hopping about. The moment the crows ate what was thrown
to them they fell down dead.

"Heaven be praised," exclaimed the vizier's son, "who has preserved me
from death at this time!"

On the return of the prince that evening the vizier's son was very
reticent and depressed. The prince noticed this change in him, and
asked what was the reason. "Is it because I am away so much at the
palace?" The vizier's son saw that the prince had nothing to do with
the sending of the pilaw, and therefore told him everything.

"Look here," he said, "in this handkerchief is some pilaw that the
princess sent me this morning in the name of her deceased uncle. It is
saturated with poison. Thank Heaven, I discovered it in time!"