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Who knows but that they may be related? said everybody. They both came from the same direction, and both are strangers.
Accordingly the princess was led to the market-place, where the king was sitting in royal state. He had a fat, red, shining face, and did not look like the kings whom she had been in the habit of seeing; but nevertheless the princess made a graceful courtesy, and then waited to hear what he would say.
The new king seemed rather embarrassed when he saw that it was a princess who appeared before him; but he smiled graciously, and said, in a smooth oily voice,
I trust your Ighness is quite well. And ow did yer Ighness leave yer pa and ma?
At these words the princess raised her head and looked fixedly at the red-faced king; then she replied, with scornful distinctness,
What is the price of butter?
At these words an alarming change came over the kings face. The red faded from it, and left it a livid green; his teeth chattered; his eyes stared, and rolled in their sockets; while the sceptre dropped from his trembling hand and fell at the princesss feet. For the truth was, this was no king at all, but a retired butterman, who had laid by a little money at his trade, and had thought of setting up a public house; but chancing to pass through this city at the very time when they were looking for a king, it struck him that he might just as well fill the vacant place as any one else. No one had thought of his being an impostor; but when the princess fixed her clear eyes on him and asked him that familiar question, which he had been in the habit of hearing many times a day for a great part of his life, the guilty butterman thought himself detected, and shook in his guilty shoes. Hastily descending from his throne, he beckoned the princess into a side-chamber, and closing the door, besought her in moving terms not to betray him.
Here, he said, is a bag of rubies as big as pigeons eggs. There are six thousand of them, and I umbly beg your Ighness to haccept them as a slight token hof my hesteem, if your Ighness will kindly consent to spare a respeckable tradesman the disgrace of being hexposed.
The princess reflected, and came to the conclusion that, after all, a butterman might make as good a king as any one else; so she took the rubies with a gracious little nod, and departed, while all the people shouted, Hooray! and followed her, waving their hats and kerchiefs, to the gates of the city.
With her bag of rubies over her shoulder, the fair princess now pursued her journey, and fared forward over heath and hill, through brake and through brier. After several days she came to a deep forest, which she entered without hesitation, for she knew no fear. She had not gone a hundred paces under the arching limes, when she was met by a band of robbers, who stopped her and asked what she did in their forest, and what she carried in her bag. They were fierce, black-bearded men, armed to the teeth with daggers, cutlasses, pistols, dirks, hangers, blunderbusses, and other defensive weapons; but the princess gazed calmly on them, and said haughtily,
Has your grandmother sold her mangle yet?
The effect was magical. The robbers started back in dismay, crying, The countersign! Then they hastily lowered their weapons, and assuming attitudes of abject humility, besought the princess graciously to accompany them to their masters presence. With a lofty gesture she signified assent, and the cringing, trembling bandits led her on through the forest till they reached an open glade, into which the sunbeams glanced right merrily. Here, under a broad oak-tree which stood in the centre of the glade, reclined a man of gigantic stature and commanding mien, with a whole armory of weapons displayed upon his person. Hastening to their chief, the robbers conveyed to him, in agitated whispers, the circumstance of their meeting the princess, and of her unexpected reply to their questions. Hardly seeming to credit their statement, the gigantic chieftain sprang to his feet, and advancing toward the princess with a respectful reverence, begged her to repeat the remark which had so disturbed his men. With a royal air, and in clear and ringing tones, the princess repeated,
Has your grandmother sold her mangle yet? and gazed steadfastly at the robber chief.
He turned deadly pale, and staggered against a tree, which alone prevented him from falling.
It is true! he gasped. We are undone! The enemy is without doubt close at hand, and all is over. Yet, he added with more firmness, and with an appealing glance at the princess, yet there may be one chance left for us. If this gracious lady will consent to go forward, instead of returning through the wood, we may yet escape with our lives. Noble princess! and here he and the whole band assumed attitudes of supplication, consider, I pray you, whether it would really add to your happiness to betray to the advancing army a few poor foresters, who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. Here, he continued, hastily drawing something from a hole in the oak-tree, is a bag containing ten thousand sapphires, each as large as a pullets egg. If you will graciously deign to accept them, and to pursue your journey in the direction I shall indicate, the Red Chief of the Rustywhanger will be your slave forever.