Page:The Grey Fairy Book.djvu/58

 But the stranger answered: ‘I am not going to waste a whole month in leading you to the castle! If it were only a day or two’s journey I would not mind; but a month—no!’

‘Come with me then for three days,’ said Dschemil, ‘and put me in the right road, and I will reward you richly.’

‘Very well,’ replied the stranger, ‘so let it be.’

For three days they travelled from sunrise to sunset, then the stranger said: ‘Dschemil?’

‘Yes,’ replied he.

‘Go straight on till you reach a spring, then go on a little farther, and soon you will see the castle standing before you.’

‘So I will,’ said Dschemil.

‘Farewell, then,’ said the stranger, and turned back the way he had come.

It was six and twenty days before Dschemil caught sight of a green spot rising out of the sandy desert, and knew that the spring was near at last. He hastened his steps, and soon was kneeling by its side, drinking thirstily of the bubbling water. Then he lay down on the cool grass, and began to think. ‘If the man was right, the castle must be somewhere about. I had better sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I shall be able to see where it is.’ So he slept long and peacefully. When he awoke the sun was high, and he jumped up and washed his face and hands in the spring, before going on his journey. He had not walked far, when the castle suddenly appeared before him, though a moment before not a trace of it could be seen. ‘How am I to get in?’ he thought. ‘I dare not knock, lest the ogre should hear me. Perhaps it would be best for me to climb up the wall, and wait to see what will happen. So he did, and after sitting on the top for about an hour, a window above him opened, and a voice said: ‘Dschemil!’ He looked up, and at the sight of Dschemila, whom he had so long believed to be dead, he began to weep.