Page:Margaret sherwood--The Princess Pourquoi.djvu/132

 The Princess Victorine rode away, and behind her the witch-wife laughed.

"That 's the way the pretty knight went," she called. "You 'll find him further on."

The Princess indignantly turned her charger and rode in the opposite direction. That morning came her moment of great reward, for, by the side of a noxious swamp, a gray mist met her, blinding her eyes, and she thought she heard sounds of gurgling and lashing and clawing. Once she caught sight of the great shining eye of which Auguste Philippe had told her, and then she dimly detected the grin of teeth. Olivera Rinalda Victorine was sure that she had met the Microbe at last. With lifted spear, and with the shout, "A maiden to the rescue!" she rode into the floating cloud