Page:Old time stories (Perrault, Robinson).djvu/224

 Old-Time Stories creatures, where the water was up to their necks. Never were two people more astounded or more distressed. 'Alas!' they cried to each other; 'this is a doleful wedding feast for us! What has brought this unhappy fate upon us? ' They did not know what in the world to think, except that it was desired to compass their death, and this reflection filled them with melancholy.

Three days passed and they heard not a word of anything. At the end of the third day the King of the Peacocks came and hurled insults at them through a hole in the wall.

'You called yourselves King and Prince to trap me,' he shouted to them, 'and sought thus to make me promise to wed your sister. But you are nought but a couple of beggars, not worth the water you drink. You shall be sent for trial, and the judges will make short work of your case—the rope to hang you with is being plaited already!'

'Not so fast, King of the Peacocks,' replied the captive monarch, angrily, 'or you will have cause to repent it! I am a king like yourself: I rule over a fair land, I have robes and crowns and treasure in plenty. I pledge my all to the truth of what I say. You must be joking to talk of hanging us—of what have we robbed you?'

The King of the Peacocks hardly knew what to make of this bold and confident challenge. He was almost of a mind to spare their lives and let them take their sister away. But his Chancellor, an arrant flatterer, egged him on, whispering that if he did not avenge himself, he would be the laughing-stock of the whole world, and would be looked upon as a mere twopenny-halfpenny monarch. Thus