Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/140

 118 basket ordered it to be thrown into the sea. When the prince returned the queen told him that the princess had eaten up the child. The prince went up close to her and asked thus: "Then you ungrateful girl, you have had a boy, and you have eaten it up?" The answer she gave was to tell him that she prayed God to discover the truth. The prince then said to her, that, if such a thing should happen to her a second time, he would kill her. After the lapse of some time the princess again found herself with child, and when her hour had come the prince as before was obliged to go on a journey, and the poor princess gave birth to another boy. The child was hardly born when the queen laid hold of it and cut its little finger off and smeared the princess's lips with the blood from it, and placing the child in a basket consigned it to the waves. When the prince came home she told him the same story concerning her child. The prince went to the princess and said as before, "So you have again eaten up your child, as I have been told; you are an ungrateful creature!" But she gave him no other answer but that she prayed God to discover the truth. The prince said then that he would forgive her only once more, but if that happened to her again he would certainly kill her. Some time elapsed and the princess again found herself with child, and when her hour had arrived the prince had to take another journey, and the princess gave birth to another boy. The queen that moment took up the child and cut its little finger off and placed it in a basket and ordered the child to be thrown into the sea. The prince returned home, and the queen, who had smeared the princess's lips with the child's blood, told her son that she had demolished her child. The prince, being exasperated and growing very angry, went up to the princess, scolded her, and ordered her to he buried up to her waist in a small courtyard leading to the principal staircase; and every one that passed her was to beat her.