Twilight Land | Page 9

he told her that when the sorcerer came again
that day she should say so and so and so and so, and that he would be

by to help her with his feather cap upon his head.
After that they sat talking together as happy as two turtle-doves, until
the magician's foot was heard on the stairs. And then the soldier
clapped his feather cap upon his head just as the door opened.
"Snuff, snuff!" said the magician, sniffing the air, "here is a smell of
Christian blood."
"Yes," said the princess, "that is so; there came a peddlar to-day, but
after all he did not stay long."
"He'd better not come again," said the magician, "or it will be the worse
for him. But tell me, will you marry me?"
"No," said the princess, "I shall not marry you until you can prove
yourself to be a greater man than my husband."
"Pooh!" said the magician, "that will be easy enough to prove; tell me
how you would have me do so and I will do it."
"Very well," said the princess, "then let me see you change yourself
into a lion. If you can do that I may perhaps believe you to be as great
as my husband."
"It shall," said the magician, "be as you say. He began to mutter spells
and strange words, and then all of a sudden he was gone, and in his
place there stood a lion with bristling mane and flaming eyes--a sight
fit of itself to kill a body with terror.
"That will do!" cried the princess, quaking and trembling at the sight,
and thereupon the magician took his own shape again.
"Now," said he, "do you believe that I am as great as the poor soldier?"
"Not yet," said the princess; "I have seen how big you can make
yourself, now I wish to see how little you can become. Let me see you
change yourself into a mouse."
"So be it," said the magician, and began again to mutter his spells. Then
all of a sudden he was gone just as he was gone before, and in his place
was a little mouse sitting up and looking at the princess with a pair of
eyes like glass beads.
But he did not sit there long. This was what the soldier had planned for,
and all the while he had been standing by with his feather hat upon his
head. Up he raised his foot, and down he set it upon the mouse.
Crunch!--that was an end of the magician.
After that all was clear sailing; the soldier hunted up the three-legged
stool and down he sat upon it, and by dint of no more than just a little

wishing, back flew palace and garden and all through the air again to
the place whence it came.
I do not know whether the old king ever believed again that his
son-in-law was the King of the Wind; anyhow, all was peace and
friendliness thereafter, for when a body can sit upon a three-legged
stool and wish to such good purpose as the soldier wished, a body is
just as good as a king, and a good deal better, to my mind.
The Soldier who cheated the Devil looked into his pipe; it was nearly
out. He puffed and puffed and the coal glowed brighter, and fresh
clouds of smoke rolled up into the air. Little Brown Betty came and
refilled, from a crock of brown foaming ale, the mug which he had
emptied. The Soldier who had cheated the Devil looked up at her and
winked one eye.
"Now," said St. George, "it is the turn of yonder old man," and he
pointed, as he spoke, with the stem of his pipe towards old Bidpai, who
sat with closed eyes meditating inside of himself.
The old man opened his eyes, the whites of which were as yellow as
saffron, and wrinkled his face into innumerable cracks and lines. Then
he closed his eyes again; then he opened them again; then he cleared
his throat and began: "There was once upon a time a man whom other
men called Aben Hassen the Wise--"
"One moment," said Ali Baba; "will you not tell us what the story is
about?"
Old Bidpai looked at him and stroked his long white beard. "It is," said
he, "about--
The Talisman of Solomon
There was once upon a time a man whom other men called Aben
Hassen the Wise. He had read a thousand books of magic, and knew all
that the ancients or moderns had to tell of the hidden arts.
The King of the Demons of the Earth, a great and hideous monster,
named Zadok, was his servant, and came and went as Aben Hassen the