Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/183

Rh into a grey-goose, which flew from the ship on to the dark blue sea; while the horrid nurse took the beautiful garments and dressed her daughter up in them.

When they at last arrived at the kingdom near the World's End, Prince Ignatius was standing waiting on the shore with all his men ready to receive them; Prince Demitrius had already landed, and was looking forward just as much as his friend to seeing his sister.

At last the nurse landed with the supposed princess, who had very carefully drawn a thick veil over her ugly face; but Prince Ignatius ordered her to throw it off, and then, looking from a little miniature of Princess Marie, which he held in his hand, to the nurse's ugly daughter, he flew into a dreadful rage, declaring that it was a trick of his friend, Prince Demitrius, and that the miniature was that of his bride, as he had said from the beginning. So he ordered the unfortunate young prince to be locked up in prison, and that no one was to go near him; as for the nurse and her daughter, he ordered them to be locked up also.

When midnight came, and the moon shed her silvery rays upon the dark blue sea, there came out of the midst of the waters the grey-goose, who flew to the prison where Prince Demitrius sat, and hung her feathers upon a nail on the window and resuming her proper shape once more, came up to her brother, saying,—

"Dearest of brothers! My poor Demitrius! How dreadful it must be for you to be shut up in this wretched prison with nothing but bread and water,