Prince Prigio. From His Own Fairy Book Read online

  “Oh, if you wish it, you shall have the horns and tail of a Firedrake to hang up in your hall, to-morrow evening!”

  Then she asked if it was not very dangerous work, Firedrake hunting; and he said it was nothing, when you knew the trick of it: and he asked her if she would but give him a rose out of her bouquet; and, in short, he made himself so agreeable and unaffected, that she thought him very nice indeed.

  For, even a clever person can be nice when he likes — above all, when he is not thinking about himself. And now the prince was thinking of nothing in the world but the daughter of the English ambassador, and how to please her. He got introduced to her father too, and quite won his heart; and, at last, he was invited to dine next day at the Embassy.

  In Pantouflia, it is the custom that a ball must not end while one of the royal family goes on dancing. This ball lasted till the light came in, and the birds were singing out of doors, and all the mothers present were sound asleep. Then nothing would satisfy the prince, but that they all should go home singing through the streets; in fact, there never had been so merry a dance in all Pantouflia. The prince had made a point of dancing with almost every girl there: and he had suddenly become the most beloved of the royal family. But everything must end at last; and the prince, putting on the cap of darkness and sitting on the famous carpet, flew back to his lonely castle.

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Prince is Puzzled

  Prince Prigio did not go to bed. It was bright daylight, and he had promised to bring the horns and tail of a Firedrake as a present to a pretty lady. He had said it was easy to do this; but now, as he sat and thought over it, he did not feel so victorious.

  “First,” he said, “where is the Firedrake?” He reflected for a little, and then ran upstairs to the garret.

  “It should be here!” he cried, tossing the fairies’ gifts about; “and, by George, here it is!”

  Indeed, he had found the spyglass of carved ivory which Prince Ali, in the Arabian Nights, bought in the bazaar in Schiraz. Now, this glass was made so that, by looking through it, you could see anybody or anything you wished, however far away. Prigio’s first idea was to look at his lady. “But she does not expect to be looked at,” he thought; “and I won’t!” On the other hand, he determined to look at the Firedrake; for, of course, he had no delicacy about spying on him, the brute.

  The prince clapped the glass to his eye, stared out of window, and there, sure enough, he saw the Firedrake. He was floating about in a sea of molten lava, on the top of a volcano. There he was, swimming and diving for pleasure, tossing up the flaming waves, and blowing fountains of fire out of his nostrils, like a whale spouting!

  The prince did not like the looks of him.

  “With all my cap of darkness, and my shoes of swiftness, and my sword of sharpness, I never could get near that beast,” he said; “and if I did stalk him, I could not hurt him. Poor little Alphonso! poor Enrico! what plucky fellows they were! I fancied that there was no such thing as a Firedrake: he’s not in the Natural History books, and I thought the boys were only making fun, and would be back soon, safe and sound. How horrid being too clever makes one! And now, what am I to do?”

  What was he to do, indeed? And what would you have done? Bring the horns and tail he must, or perish in the adventure. Otherwise, how could he meet his lady? — why, she would think him a mere braggart!

  The prince sat down, and thought and thought; and the day went on, and it was now high noon.

  At last he jumped up and rushed into the library, a room where nobody ever went except himself and the queen. There he turned the books upside down, in his haste, till he found an old one, by a French gentleman, Monsieur Cyrano de Bergerac. It was an account of a voyage to the moon, in which there is a great deal of information about matters not generally known; for few travellers have been to the moon. In that book, Prince Prigio fancied he would find something he half remembered, and that would be of use to him. And he did! So you see that cleverness, and minding your book, have some advantages, after all. For here the prince learned that there is a very rare beast, called a Remora, which is at least as cold as the Firedrake is hot!

  “Now,” thought he, “if I can only make these two fight, why the Remora may kill the Firedrake, or take the heat out of him, at least, so that I may have a chance.”

  Then he seized the ivory glass, clapped it to his eye, and looked for the Remora. Just the tip of his nose, as white as snow and as smooth as ice, was sticking out of a chink in a frozen mountain, not far from the burning mountain of the Firedrake.

  “Hooray!” said the prince softly to himself; and he jumped like mad into the winged shoes of swiftness, stuck on the cap of darkness, girdled himself with the sword of sharpness, and put a good slice of bread, with some cold tongue, in a wallet, which he slung on his back. Never you fight, if you can help it, except with plenty of food to keep you going and in good heart. Then off he flew, and soon he reached the volcano of the Firedrake.

  CHAPTER IX

  The Prince and the Firedrake

  It was dreadfully hot, even high up in the air, where the prince hung invisible. Great burning stones were tossed up by the volcano, and nearly hit him several times. Moreover, the steam and smoke, and the flames which the Firedrake spouted like foam from his nostrils, would have daunted even the bravest man. The sides of the hill, too, were covered with the blackened ashes of his victims, whom he had roasted when they came out to kill him. The garden-engine of poor little Alphonso was lying in the valley, all broken and useless. But the Firedrake, as happy as a wild duck on a lonely loch, was rolling and diving in the liquid flame, all red-hot and full of frolic.

  “Hi!” shouted the prince.

  The Firedrake rose to the surface, his horns as red as a red crescent-moon, only bigger, and lashing the fire with his hoofs and his blazing tail.

  “Who’s there?” he said in a hoarse, angry voice. “Just let me get at you!”

  “It’s me,” answered the prince. It was the first time he had forgotten his grammar, but he was terribly excited.

  “What do you want?” grunted the beast. “I wish I could see you”; and, horrible to relate, he rose on a pair of wide, flaming wings, and came right at the prince, guided by the sound of his voice.

  Now, the prince had never heard that Firedrakes could fly; indeed, he had never believed in them at all, till the night before. For a moment he was numb with terror; then he flew down like a stone to the very bottom of the hill, and shouted:

  “Hi!”

  “Well,” grunted the Firedrake, “what’s the matter? Why can’t you give a civil answer to a civil question?”

  “Will you go back to your hole and swear, on your honour as a Firedrake, to listen quietly?”

  “On my sacred word of honour,” said the beast, casually scorching an eagle that flew by into ashes. The cinders fell, jingling and crackling, round the prince in a little shower.

  Then the Firedrake dived back, with an awful splash of flame, and the mountain roared round him.

  The prince now flew high above him, and cried:

  “A message from the Remora. He says you are afraid to fight him.”

  “Don’t know him,” grunted the Firedrake.

  “He sends you his glove,” said Prince Prigio, “as a challenge to mortal combat, till death do you part.”

  Then he dropped his own glove into the fiery lake.

  “Does he?” yelled the Firedrake. “Just let me get at him!” and he scrambled out, all red-hot as he was.

  “I’ll go and tell him you’re coming,” said the prince; and with two strides he was over the frozen mountain of the Remora.

  CHAPTER X

  The Prince and the Remora

  If he had been too warm before, the prince was too cold now. The hill of the Remora was one solid mass of frozen steel, and the cold rushed out of it like the breath of some icy beast, which indeed it was. All around were things like marble statues of men in armour: they were the dead
bodies of the knights, horses and all, who had gone out of old to fight the Remora, and who had been frosted up by him. The prince felt his blood stand still, and he grew faint; but he took heart, for there was no time to waste. Yet he could nowhere see the Remora.

  “Hi!” shouted the prince.

  Then, from a narrow chink at the bottom of the smooth, black hill, — a chink no deeper than that under a door, but a mile wide, — stole out a hideous head!

  It was as flat as the head of a skate-fish, it was deathly pale, and two chill-blue eyes, dead-coloured like stones, looked out of it.

  Then there came a whisper, like the breath of the bitter east wind on a winter day:

  “Where are you, and how can I come to you?”

  “Here I am!” said the prince from the top of the hill.

  Then the flat, white head set itself against the edge of the chink from which it had peeped, and slowly, like the movement of a sheet of ice, it slipped upwards and curled upwards, and up, and up! There seemed no end to it at all; and it moved horribly, without feet, holding on by its own frost to the slippery side of the frozen hill. Now all the lower part of the black hill was covered with the horrid white thing coiled about it in smooth, flat, shiny coils; and still the head was higher than the rest; and still the icy cold came nearer and nearer, like Death.

  The prince almost fainted: everything seemed to swim; and in one moment more he would have fallen stiff on the mountain-top, and the white head would have crawled over him, and the cold coils would have slipped over him and turned him to stone. And still the thing slipped up, from the chink under the mountain.

  But the prince made a great effort; he moved, and in two steps he was far away, down in the valley where it was not so very cold.

  “Hi!” he shouted, as soon as his tongue could move within his chattering teeth.

  There came a clear, hissing answer, like frozen words dropping round him:

  “Wait till I come down. What do you want?”

  Then the white folds began to slide, like melting ice, from the black hill.

  Prince Prigio felt the air getting warmer behind him, and colder in front of him.

  He looked round, and there were the trees beginning to blacken in the heat, and the grass looking like a sea of fire along the plains; for the Firedrake was coming!

  The prince just took time to shout, “The Firedrake is going to pay you a visit!” and then he soared to the top of a neighbouring hill, and looked on at what followed.

  CHAPTER XI

  The Battle

  It was an awul sight to behold! When the Remora heard the name of the Firedrake, his hated enemy, he slipped with wonderful speed from the cleft of the mountain into the valley. On and on and on he poured over rock and tree, as if a frozen river could slide downhill; on and on, till there were miles of him stretching along the valley — miles of the smooth-ribbed, icy creature, crawling and slipping forwards. The green trees dropped their leaves as he advanced; the birds fell down dead from the sky, slain by his frosty breath! But, fast as the Remora stole forward, the Firedrake came quicker yet, flying and clashing his fiery wings. At last they were within striking distance; and the Firedrake, stooping from the air, dashed with his burning horns and flaming feet slap into the body of the Remora.

  Then there rose a steam so dreadful, such a white yet fiery vapour of heat, that no one who had not the prince’s magic glass could have seen what happened. With horrible grunts and roars the Firedrake tried to burn his way right through the flat body of the Remora, and to chase him to his cleft in the rock. But the Remora, hissing terribly, and visibly melting away in places, yet held his ground; and the prince could see his cold white folds climbing slowly up the hoofs of the Firedrake — up and up, till they reached his knees, and the great burning beast roared like a hundred bulls with the pain. Then up the Firedrake leaped, and hovering on his fiery wings, he lighted in the midst of the Remora’s back, and dashed into it with his horns. But the flat, cruel head writhed backwards, and, slowly bending over on itself, the wounded Remora slid greedily to fasten again on the limbs of the Firedrake.

  Meanwhile, the prince, safe on his hill, was lunching on the loaf and the cold tongue he had brought with him.

  “Go it, Remora! Go it, Firedrake! you’re gaining. Give it him, Remora!” he shouted in the wildest excitement.

  Nobody had ever seen such a battle; he had it all to himself, and he never enjoyed anything more. He hated the Remora so much, that he almost wished the Firedrake could beat it; for the Firedrake was the more natural beast of the pair. Still, he was alarmed when he saw that the vast flat body of the Remora was now slowly coiling backwards, backwards, into the cleft below the hill; while a thick wet mist showed how cruelly it had suffered. But the Firedrake, too, was in an unhappy way; for his legs were now cold and black, his horns were black also, though his body, especially near the heart, glowed still like red-hot iron.

  “Go it, Remora!” cried the prince: “his legs are giving way; he’s groggy on his pins! One more effort, and he won’t be able to move!”

  Encouraged by this advice, the white, slippery Remora streamed out of his cavern again, more and more of him uncoiling, as if the mountain were quite full of him. He had lost strength, no doubt: for the steam and mist went up from him in clouds, and the hissing of his angry voice grew fainter; but so did the roars of the Firedrake. Presently they sounded more like groans; and at last the Remora slipped up his legs above the knees, and fastened on his very heart of fire. Then the Firedrake stood groaning like a black bull, knee-deep in snow; and still the Remora climbed and climbed.

  “Go it now, Firedrake!” shouted the prince; for he knew that if the Remora won, it would be too cold for him to draw near the place, and cut off the Firedrake’s head and tail.

  “Go it, Drake! he’s slackening!” cried the prince again; and the brave Firedrake made one last furious effort, and rising on his wings, dropped just on the spine of his enemy.

  The wounded Remora curled back his head again on himself, and again crawled, steaming terribly, towards his enemy. But the struggle was too much for the gallant Remora. The flat, cruel head moved slower; the steam from his thousand wounds grew fiercer; and he gently breathed his last just as the Firedrake, too, fell over and lay exhausted. With one final roar, like the breath of a thousand furnaces, the Firedrake expired.

  The prince, watching from the hill-top, could scarcely believe that these two awful scourges of Nature, which had so long devastated his country, were actually dead. But when he had looked on for half-an-hour, and only a river ran where the Remora had been, while the body of the Firedrake lay stark and cold, he hurried to the spot.

  Drawing the sword of sharpness, he hacked off, at two blows, the iron head and the tail of the Firedrake. They were a weary weight to carry; but in a few strides of the shoes of swiftness he was at his castle, where he threw down his burden, and nearly fainted with excitement and fatigue.

  But the castle clock struck half-past seven; dinner was at eight, and the poor prince crawled on hands and knees to the garret. Here he put on the wishing-cap; wished for a pint of champagne, a hot bath, and his best black velvet and diamond suit. In a moment these were provided; he bathed, dressed, drank a glass of wine, packed up the head and tail of the Firedrake, sat down on the flying carpet, and knocked at the door of the English ambassador as the clocks were striking eight in Gluckstein.

  Punctuality is the politeness of princes! and a prince is polite, when he is in love!

  The prince was received at the door by a stout porter and led into the hall, where several butlers met him, and he laid the mortal remains of the Firedrake under the cover of the flying carpet.

  Then he was led upstairs; and he made his bow to the pretty lady, who, of course, made him a magnificent courtesy. She seemed prettier and kinder than ever. The prince was so happy, that he never noticed how something went wrong about the dinner. The ambassador looked about, and seemed to miss someone, and spoke in a low voice t
o one of the servants, who answered also in a low voice, and what he said seemed to displease the ambassador. But the prince was so busy in talking to his lady, and in eating his dinner too, that he never observed anything unusual. He had never been at such a pleasant dinner!

  CHAPTER XII

  A Terrible Misfortune

  When the ladies left, and the prince and the other gentlemen were alone, the ambassador appeared more gloomy than ever. At last he took the prince into a corner, on pretence of showing him a rare statue.

  “Does your royal highness not know,” he asked, “that you are in considerable danger?”

  “Still?” said the prince, thinking of the Firedrake.

  The ambassador did not know what he meant, for he had never heard of the fight, but he answered gravely:

  “Never more than now.”

  Then he showed the prince two proclamations, which had been posted all about the town.

  Here is the first:

  TO ALL LOYAL SUBJECTS.

  Whereas,

  Our eldest son, Prince Prigio, hath of late been guilty of several high crimes and misdemeanours.

  First: By abandoning the post of danger against the Firedrake, whereby our beloved sons, Prince Alphonso and Prince Enrico, have perished, and been overdone by that monster.

  Secondly: By attending an unseemly revel in the town of Gluckstein, where he brawled in the streets.

  Thirdly: By trying to seduce away the hearts of our loyal subjects in that city, and to blow up a party against our crown and our peace.