Page:Turkish fairy tales and folk tales (1901).djvu/136

 round and round, and from the white globe proceeded the light.

"What art thou doing, old father?" asked the King's son.

"Alas! my son," replied the old man, "my business is my bane, I hold fast the nights and let go the days."—"Alas! my father," replied the King's son, "my task is even greater than thine." With that he tied together the old man's arms, so that he might not let go the days, and went on still further to seek the light. He went on and on till he came to the foot of a castle wall, and forty men were taking counsel together beneath it.

"What's the matter?" inquired the King's son.—"We should like to go into the castle to steal the treasure," said the forty men, "but we don't know how."

"I would very soon help you if you only gave me a little light," said the King's son. This the robbers readily promised to do, and after that he took a packet of nails, knocked them into the castle wall, row after row, right up to the top, clambered up himself, and then shouted down to them: "Now you come up one by one, just as I have done."

So the robbers caught hold of the nails and began to clamber up, one after another, the whole forty of them. But the youth was not idle. He drew his sword, and the moment each one of them reached the