Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/142

120 a great desire to see his daughter once more, but the prince pretended that he had to take a journey to a distant part before returning home, and this he said because he did not wish the king to know the disgrace he had put her to. The prince took leave of the king and made haste to reach his palace, and the moment he arrived he gave the princess the knife and the three little blue stones. He then hid himself to see what she would do. The princess placed the three stones before her, and asked the first stone, "Do you remember, little blue stone, that when I gave birth to a child the queen cut his little finger off, rubbed my lips with the blood that came from it, and then told the prince that I had eaten it up, and how she afterward placed it in a basket and had it thrown into the sea?" And the stones then commenced to beat against each other making a noise: Tlin tin tin, and said that what the princess stated was quite true. The princess then asked the second little stone if it remembered what the queen had done to her second child born to her, relating all that had passed; and the little stones again commenced to beat one against the other, Tlin tin tin, and said that what the princess related was the truth. The princess then once more asked the third blue stone if it recollected the treatment inflicted on her third child, and how the queen had drowned it and said that she had eaten it up; and the little blue stones recommenced to beat against each other, Tlin tin tin, and saying that it was perfectly true all that the princess had stated. When she had finished asking the three questions she took hold of the knife, saying, "Now I shall put an end to my sufferings and cut my head off." When the prince heard her say this he ran to prevent her killing herself. He instantly lifted her out of the pit she was in, and took her to his chamber. He then called up the servant who had thrown the three children into the sea, and asked him if it was true what the princess said, and the servant owned to the truth of it; and the prince