Page:Folk Tales from Tibet (1906).djvu/127

Rh So the time slipped by and at last the nine years of the Fairy wife's abode upon earth came to an end. The young Man, however, had become so accustomed to her presence that he could hardly believe that the Fairy King's words would come true and that he should really be deprived of his wife when the appointed time arrived. So on the last night of the ninth year he went to bed as usual in his magnificent chamber, clothed in rich silks, and surrounded by all the evidences of wealth and luxury.

He slept soundly all night, and when he awoke in the morning and sat up and looked about him, what was his astonishment and horror to discover that, instead of lying upon his fine couch in his magnificent palace, with troops of servants ready to wait upon him, he was reposing upon the bare ground under the open sky, on a bleak hillside near to the spot where he had first conversed with the Fairy King. His palace, his servants, his horses, his furniture, and, worst of all, his beautiful wife, had all disappeared utterly and completely, and nothing remained of them but a memory. Half distracted with grief and chagrin, the young Man ran frantically across the country, thinking to find some trace of his lost happiness.

For some days he wandered on and on, scarcely conscious of what he was doing, and at length, having passed beyond the part of the country which he knew, he arrived one day about noon on the shores of a vast expanse of water which stretched before him as far as he could see. By the side of this lake there arose a jagged cliff,