Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/211

 tender green grass and lovely coloured flowers, and, taking the knife out of its sheath, he cut the first lemon open. In a moment, like a flash of lightning, a beautiful girl stood before him, as white as milk and as red as a strawberry, and she said to him, "Give me something to drink."

The Prince, quite dazzled and bewildered by the beauty of the fairy, did not give her the water quickly enough, and to his great grief she vanished almost as soon as she had appeared.

The same thing happened when he cut the second lemon open, and the Prince exclaimed in despair, "I am the most unlucky creature in the world. Twice have I let my luck escape me—but courage! I have still a third chance, and there is luck in odd numbers: this knife shall either be the means of securing my happiness, or it shall put an end to my griefs."

With these words he cut the third lemon open, and out stepped the third fairy, and said, as the others had done, "Give me something to drink."

This time the Prince handed the fairy a glass of water as quick as lightning, and in a moment a lovely girl stood before him, as white as cream and as red as blood. Her hair was golden, her mouth like a rosebud, and her eyes shone like two stars. In one word, she was as beautiful as the day, and she looked as good as she was beautiful, and as charming as she was good. The Prince could not contain his admiration, and said: "Am I asleep or awake, or are my eyes bewitched; for how can such a lovely creature have been contained in the bitter rind of this yellow lemon?"

But when he had at last convinced himself that the beautiful apparition before him was no dream, but sober reality, he kissed the fairy tenderly, and said many charming things to her. He begged her to be his wife. "But," he said, "I will not take you back to my father's kingdom without the splendour worthy of your beauty, or without the escort fitting for my queen. Therefore, let me beg of you to remain in the meantime in the hollow of this leafy oak, which looks as if it had been made for a hiding place, and there await my return. You may be sure I will come back to you as quickly as I can, and will then lead you to my kingdom with the retinue and following that befits your position"; and so saying he bade her farewell, and set forth on his journey.

When he had gone, the fairy climbed up into one of the forks of the tree, and from there watched all that was going on around her. Before many minutes had passed a black slave girl arrived at the well with a pitcher for water. She was just going to dip the jug in the waves, when she perceived the face of the fairy reflected in the water, and, thinking it was her own reflection she saw, she started back with a cry of surprise, exclaiming at the same time, "What, unhappy Lucia, you are as beautiful as all that, and yet your mistress sends you to the well to get water, and you submit to her conduct?"

With these words she broke the jug, and returned home. But when her mistress asked her why she had not done her duty she replied, "I went to the well, and broke the pitcher by mistake against a big stone."

The woman restrained her anger as well as she could, and on the following day gave the girl a beautiful china jug, and told her to go to the well and fill it with water.