Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/139

 Rh respecting her fate. The child never went out anywhere and did nothing but play with the little blue stones on the table.

One day the king and queen left the palace to travel, and the child remained alone under the care of the lady in waiting. She was amusing herself playing in the garden when a large bird flew close to her and asked her when would she prefer to go through and accomplish her destiny, in youth or in old age. The lady in waiting advised her to say that she would prefer it in her youth rather than in her old age. The bird then instantly laid hold of the little princess with his beak and flew away with her. The bird took her through the air and left her alone in a great and dense forest. When she had been there one night and a day she began to weep because she felt very hungry and cold. There was a city near this forest to which a certain prince was in the habit of going once a month to hunt in the neighbourhood. It so happened that on this same day the prince came to hunt in the forest, and as he was traversing it he heard what appeared to him suppressed sobbing. He asked his chamberlain to accompany him, and went searching until he came upon the princess. He was delighted to find her, and he put her upon his horse and took her to the palace, and then locked her up in a room without any one knowing it. But the queen, suspecting the prince because he was always in that room, waited until one day when the prince had gone out, and opened the door to see what was there, and found the princess in the chamber. She scolded the prince very much for his conduct when she saw him, but he begged her not to illtreat the princess. Neither the queen his mother nor his sister liked the princess in the least, but she continued to live in the palace. One day she found herself with child, and gave birth to a boy, just at the time when the prince had been obliged to take a journey. The queen took up the child and cut off one of his little fingers, rubbed the princess's lips with the blood from it, and putting the child in a