Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/294

 286 the point of giving up the attempt in despair, when it struck him that each of the cats had a slight thread passed round its neck, and that while the threads of two were scarlet, that of the third was blue. 'This is your youngest daughter,' cried he, snatching up the cat with the blue thread. The headman was utterly at a loss to conceive by what means he had made the discovery, but could not deny the fact, for there stood the princesses in their own shape. He therefore affected to be greatly pleased, gave him his bride, and made a great feast, which was followed by a ball; but in the midst of it the princess whispered her lover to follow her silently into the garden. Here she told him that an old Obeah woman, who had been her father's nurse, had warned him that if his youngest daughter should live to see the day after her wedding he would lose his power and his life together; that she, therefore, was sure of his intending to destroy both herself and her bridegroom that night in their sleep, but that being aware of all these circumstances she had watched him so narrowly as to get possession of some of his magical secrets, which might possibly enable her to counteract his cruel designs. She then gathered a rose, picked up a pebble, filled a small phial with water from a rivulet; and thus provided, she and her lover betook themselves to flight upon a couple of the swiftest steeds in her father's stables. It was midnight before the headman missed them; his rage was excessive, and, immediately mounting his great horse Dandy, he set forward in pursuit of the lovers. Now Dandy galloped at the rate of ten miles a minute. The princess was soon aware of her pursuer: without loss of time she pulled the rose to pieces, scattered the leaves behind her, and had the satisfaction of seeing them instantly grow up into a wood of briars, so strong and so thickly planted that Dandy vainly attempted to force his way through them. But, alas! this fence was but of a very perishable nature. In the time that it would have taken to wither its parent rose-leaves, the briars withered' away, and Dandy was soon able to trample them down, while he continued his pursuit. Now then the pebble was thrown in his passage, it burst into forty pieces, and every piece in a minute became a rock as lofty as the Andes. But the Andes themselves would have offered no insurmountable obstacle to Dandy, who bounded from precipice to precipice, and the lovers and the headman could once more distinguish each other by the first beams of the rising sun. The headman roared, and threatened, and brandished a monstrous sabre; Dandy tore up the ground as he ran,