Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/46

 24 erected, the princess, who had the walnut in her hands, allowed it to fall to the ground. At that moment the palace was set on fire, and everything was burned. Being very much alarmed, she went and told everything to the prince. "Do you see now, yourself, how your father wished to harm us all?" The princess was with child, and the prince said that what the father wished was to kill the child.

After a time the princess gave birth to a prince—a very pretty boy. A great banquet was given, and the prince was on the point of inviting the father to it, but, fearing that he should kill the child, did not do so. One day, when the child was older, they took it out for a walk. As they proceeded through a certain road, they met a servant of the princess's father. "Where are you going to?" asked the princess to the servant. "I came to kill the child," answered the servant. The prince then asked him who it was had sent him, and the servant confessed that it was the princess's father. She asked him not to kill the child, but go and be her servant; and he therefore joined them to go to the palace. The princess now returned home, and every river they crossed presented a different appearance to her,—the first was a river of milk, the next one further on was of water covered with a mist, and further on still she came to another filled with blood. The princess, very much alarmed, asked the prince, "What can all this mean?" The servant answered her question instead, "It is the blood of the child you see." The prince on hearing this said, "Then it shall be yours!" . . . and aiming at him, fired, and shot him dead; then turning round to the princess he said,