Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/72

Blue Beard be praised,' she cried a moment after, 'they are our brothers! I am waving my handkerchief to them to hasten.'

Then Blue Beard stamped his foot and roared out so terribly that he made the whole house tremble. The poor lady came down and, casting herself, all in tears and dishevelled, at his feet, clasped him by the ankles while she besought him for mercy.

'This shall not help you,' said Blue Beard. 'You must die!' Then, taking hold of her hair and twisting her head back, the better to expose her beautiful throat, he exclaimed: 'This be the lesson I read against curiosity, the peculiar vice of woman-kind, and which above all others I find detestable. To that most fatal habit all the best accredited religions, in whatever else they may differ, unite in attributing the first cause of all misfortunes to which the race is subject.…' In this strain he continued for fully three minutes, still grasping her hair with one hand while with the other he flourished his sabre.

As he ceased, poor Fatima looked up at him with dying eyes. 'Ah, sir!' she besought

44