Uncle Joe's Stories

When the boy was brought in, the king frowned angrily upon him, and shook his royal fist in a threatening manner.

"Well, you young villain!" he cried; "have you passed the night bewailing your sins, and making ready for the death which certainly awaits you?"

"My lord king," answered the boy, with uplifted head and undaunted eye, "I have done no wrong against you or yours, and I deserve no death at your hands."

"What?" cried the king in a rage. "Didst thou not admit thy crime yesterday? Art thou not guilty of the charge brought against thee by our daughters?"

"Sire," replied the boy, "I said yesterday, and I say again, that I will not deny any statement made by these noble ladies."

"This is nonsense," said the king; "this is mere quibbling – again he admits his guilt. What shall we do with him? I say death!"

The courtiers all immediately said death too, as they would with equal unanimity have said anything else if their sovereign had happened to say it instead.

"Well, then," rejoined the king, "by what death shall he die? What say you, Lord Pompous?"

"Boil him," promptly replied the lord chamberlain, who was quite taken aback at being thus suddenly addressed, and who was at the moment thinking of a turkey which he had ordered for dinner, and with which he confused the prisoner at the moment.

"Pompous, you are a fool!" shouted the king.

"As your majesty pleases," responded the old man, with a low obeisance; and Fridolin went on to ask other opinions, which were all given with a guarded reservation, that they were subject to his majesty thinking the same, and if not, were no opinions at all.

"I think," said Fridolin presently, "that the pit of adders is the best place for him."

"Just so, sire."

"Exactly what we thought."

"The very thing," were the muttered exclamations which immediately passed round.

At this moment, Amabilia, rushed forward and threw herself at her father's feet.

"Oh, no! dear father," she cried in piteous tones; "not such a dreadful fate as that, poor boy. Pray be more merciful, for my sake."

Fridolin raised her affectionately from the ground.

"Well, well," he said, "have it your own way, my queenly girl; he shall not be thrown into the adder-pit if you have the slightest objection. Gentlemen," he continued, turning to his council, "what say you to the honey torture, and giving the wasps and bees and flies a treat?"

"Very good, your Majesty;" "Just the proper punishment for his crime," and similar observations, again proceeded from the crowd of sycophants.

But at this instant Concaterina jumped up and performed precisely the same feat as that of her sister. Throwing herself upon her knees, she clasped those of her father, and begged him not to subject poor Zac to such a dreadful fate.

"All right," said the king, to whom nothing was so disagreeable as to see his daughters cry, which Concaterina was beginning to do, and that copiously. "He shall not die thus, if you don't wish it, my beauty; but what in the name of all that is wonderful do you want me to do with the fellow, if I am not to execute him according to the regular punishments of the country?"

Now both the princesses had begun to be sorry for Zac; for on calmer reflection they had come to the conclusion that it was rather hard that he should die so young, and die, too, for keeping his faith which he had plighted to a lady. True, he was a horrid fool for not preferring one of them; but then fidelity was a virtue, and a rare one, and he punished himself by preferring a plain – not to say ugly – wife to a beauty. They would have been quite content to have given him a little more taste of dungeon life, and then let him off, and all this talk about killing him did not at all chime in with their ideas. Still, they had raised the storm, and, as other people in a similar position have often discovered, knew not how to allay it. If they recommended Zac's pardon, they feared that their father would begin to doubt whether he had really committed any offence at all. So they hung their heads and said nothing, whilst Zac turned upon them a grateful look for having saved him from two such unpleasant alternatives as those which had been suggested.

After the king had pondered a minute, he struck violently at Lord Pompous' toe with his sceptre, and gave vent to his usual exclamation when excited by a sudden idea – "I've hit it!" which, fortunately for the lord chamberlain, was in this instance untrue.

"The prisoner," continued the king, "shall choose his own death and the place of his execution. Thus shall we blend mercy with justice, and maintain our royal reputation for both."

On hearing these gracious words, the courtiers naturally turned their eyes up to the heavens in admiration of such a display of elevated feeling; and Lord Pompous looked wiser than ever, though he instinctively edged a little further off from his august sovereign.

The latter now turned to Zac and demanded of him what death he would choose to die, and where it should take place; calling upon him, at the same time, to take notice of the clemency with which he was treated.

Although this did not strike Zac very forcibly, he was exceedingly glad that matters had fallen out in this way, especially since his treacherous memory had already completely forgotten the magic word, which might otherwise have been his only chance of escape. He therefore lost no time in answering the king's question.

"May it please your majesty," he said, "since my death is resolved upon, I should like to be shot in the breast, so that I may stand face to face with my executioners. For the place, I should like to be taken down to the forest, where of old I kept my father's pigs, a simple boy knowing nothing of palaces and princesses, which have brought me to this. These were the scenes of my happy childhood. There let me end my short life."

When the boy had finished speaking, Amabilia and Concaterina both burst into tears, and would have interceded once more with their royal parent, but the stern frown which he wore on his countenance restrained them from so doing.

Fridolin directed that preparations should be made for the execution within two hours of that time, and that all his court should be summoned to it. It was to take place in a large open space upon the edge of the forest, not far from the shepherd's cottage; and, in consequence of the magnitude of the crime, and the exalted position which the criminal had lately occupied as the affianced husband of one of the king's daughters, the executioners were to be composed of members of the nobility, all of whom were ordered to draw lots by which it should be decided who should undertake this duty. Some little delay was caused by the name of Lord Pompous being first drawn, who was known to entertain a rooted aversion to fire-arms. This being properly represented to the king, and also the extreme probability that the lord chamberlain would in his confusion certainly shoot the wrong man, his majesty was graciously pleased to allow the name to be set aside, and twelve others selected. This done, and all the other arrangements completed, the royal party set forth at the proper time, and came to the spot which had been selected for the execution.

The two princesses who had been the cause of all this were by this time plunged into the deepest distress, for they had never really intended it to go so far, and thought that Zac would probably have been brought to his knees and his senses before this, and would have been pardoned on condition of his marrying one of them. They had not taken into account the necessity of satisfying offended royalty, and that their father, insulted as he believed himself to have been through them, could not possibly pass the matter over without taking summary vengeance on the culprit.

Nobody had thought anything of Belinda; but, to the surprise of many of the party, she emerged from the door of her foster-mother's cottage, leaning upon the old woman's arm, and apparently overwhelmed with grief.

When the prisoner had been brought forward, the king in a loud voice declared to the people what his crime had been, and what was to be his punishment.

Then Zac, in a firm, calm tone, spoke to the crowd in these words. "I have only one thing to answer to what is brought against me. I was betrothed to the Princess Belinda, and I have been loyal and true to her ever since my betrothal."

Before any one could prevent her, Belinda here suddenly sprang forward with an agility of which no one believed her capable, and threw herself into Zac's arms, exclaiming at the same time – "I believe you, my own Zac; let us die together."

The crowd began to murmur. The king began to waver. The elder sisters cried still more bitterly at the sight of such devotion. There was a moment's hesitation, and a hope that Fridolin might relent from his cruel purpose; when at that very moment a loud, hissing noise was heard, and the figure of a little old woman, long past middle age and without the slightest pretensions to beauty, came driving into the middle of the crowd in a car drawn by pole-cats, whilst upon and around her twined numerous snakes and adders, who hissed in such a threatening manner at the crowd that the latter parted right and left in every direction, and made way for her to advance within a very short distance of the spot upon which stood the royal party and the prisoner.

Every eye was at once turned upon the new-comer, who waved her hand in an imperious manner, and looked round with an eye accustomed to command. As soon as it was evident she was about to speak, the snakes and adders left off hissing, and there was a dead silence throughout the whole body of people present. The old woman's voice was not melodious – rather the contrary, in fact – but she spoke clearly enough, and there was not the slightest difficulty in understanding her meaning.

"I am the fairy Nuisancenika," she said, "and I reign, as many of you may possibly know, over the Plain country. Having been particularly busy lately in inventing a new kind of adder whose bite shall be beyond the power of any antidote, I had not heard of the event which has been appointed for to-day. As soon as I did hear, I determined to come and witness a righteous act performed by my old friend, King Fridolin.

"It is now some years ago since I avenged him upon his abominable wife, whom I always detested, and who fortunately gave me power over her by driving over my best viper in my own country. My vengeance, however, was not satisfied by her death. Although I had no power over her elder daughters, I was enabled to endow the last child with certain defects and deformities which it is pleasant to me to find have been rather increased than lessened by time. But if this girl gets a good and loving husband, these things will cease to trouble her, and I shall be robbed of one half my revenge. The low-born person she has chosen for her husband would be beneath my notice but that she has fixed her affections upon him. That is enough for me. He must die; and, when Fridolin considers that this fellow has insulted his elder and beautiful daughters, I cannot doubt that he will be of my opinion, and direct that the sentence be carried out without further delay."

She ceased; and a dead silence prevailed for a few seconds.

Then Fridolin turned sharply to Pompous. "Lord chamberlain, what had I better do?"

"What your majesty deems best under the circumstances," responded the high functionary thus addressed.

"Pompous, you are a fool," retorted the king, angrily.

"If your majesty please to say so," replied the courtier, with a low bow, and once more the sovereign had to think for himself. "There is much force, madam, in what you advance upon this subject," he remarked to the fairy.

"If there had not been I should not have taken the trouble to advance it," answered she. "Do not make fool of yourself by pretending to doubt as to what you ought to do. Have the young man shot directly, unless you prefer that I should let my adders loose upon him."

Scarcely were these words out of her mouth, when a clear, flute-like voice was heard ringing through the assembly. "Who talks of letting loose adders in my country?"

The people looked up and beheld a little man in a dark green coat, velveteen waistcoat, and white corduroys, coming out of the forest with a hunting-whip in his hand, which he leisurely flicked about as he walked towards the royal party.

But this strange figure was not alone. There trooped after him, three and three at a time, a whole regiment of little men, all dressed in green, and apparently belonging to the first comer. They had also whips, but kept them quiet, whilst they gradually increased in number, until there were really more than you could have easily counted.

"I say!" repeated the little man in the same voice. "Who talks of letting loose adders in my country?"