Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/424



HERE was once a King named Kojata. Married for three years to a Queen whom he greatly loved and by whom he was beloved, he was yet childless. This was a subject of much distress to him. In the hope of diverting his mind from the contemplation of this source of regret, he set off on a visit to the divers provinces of his kingdom. After travelling for several months, he turned towards his capital.

One day, fatigued by the heat, he had his tent set up in the open country, intending to await there the coolness of the coming evening. He was thirsty, and not finding any water near him, he mounted his horse to go in search of it. At a short distance from his encampment he discovered a limpid spring, on the surface of which a gold cup was floating.

He hurried towards the attractive water and tried to seize the cup, but it escaped his grasp. He made new attempts, now with the right hand, now with the left; the cup, however, defeated all his efforts to grasp it.

"Wait a bit," he said; "I shall be able to get hold of it presently."

And, seeing the water calm, and the cup floating motionless upon its surface, he stretched forth both hands to seize it; whereupon the cup vanished from his sight.

"The plaguey thing!" exclaimed Kojata; "I'll give it up, and do without it."

Saying this, he knelt upon the ground and began to drink by dipping his lips in the water. But when his thirst was assuaged, and he tried to rise, he felt himself held by the chin, and vainly endeavoured to release himself.

"Who is it? who is holding me in this way?" he cried.

Nobody answered; but before him, in the crystal of the spring, he beheld a frightful face, two great eyes as green as emeralds, a large mouth grinning in a strange fashion, and two claws clutching his chin like a pair of iron pincers, from the grip of which he found it impossible to free himself. At length, from the depths of this enchanted spring, an invisible being cried to him:

"All your efforts are useless; you can only recover your liberty on one condition; it is that you will give me the thing about which you know nothing, and which you will find on arriving at your house."

"With pleasure," replied Kojata, think-