Page:The Enchanted Knights; or The Chronicle of the Three Sisters.djvu/106

26 depths of the sea, but the crowd of wooers prevented the princess from noticing him.

Till that time he had no occasion to use the present of Waidewuth, but now he thought of giving employment to the serviceable demon. He formed him into the shape of as pretty an Amor as ever the imagination of the troubadour Jacobi had formed—locking him up in a needle case, with strict injunctions to perform all the duties of the god of Love to the lady who would open it.

On a beautiful evening, when the court was assembled in the king’s pleasure garden, a gentle zephyr disordered the veil of the princess and she asked for a pin wherewith to fasten it. Prince Udo immediately approached, bent one knee, and presented her the golden case, which contained as dangerous a present as once Pandora’s box. The princess opened it without suspicion, when instantly the demon of the ring took refuge in her bosom, and wounded her with his arrow. Udo retreated full of disquietude, not knowing what would be the result of the demon’s art.

The next day, he perceived with delight, that the eyes of the princess sought him in the crowd of her admirers. On the third day, the cunning Aya perceived that a revolution had taken place in the