When Leta heard this she was more frightened than ever, for she knew now that she was the cause of all this trouble and that the servants must be chasing them to take Roul from her. Leta put her hand to her breast. Yes; it was there—the little paper with the powder a fairy had given her a long time ago, because Leta had left a beautiful rose on its stem she was about to pick when she discovered a little fairy sleeping inside the rose. “If you ever are in trouble, open this paper and throw the powder around you,” the fairy had told her. “It will protect you from all harm.” Leta had never before needed protection, and she was not thinking so much of herself now as of her lover, wondering what the King would do if he did not obey him. [Pg 105] [Pg 105] Just then the horse on which they were riding came to a full stop with such force that Leta was thrown to the ground and the next thing she knew over the side of a cliff leaped the horse with the Prince on his back. The ocean was below, but before the horse and his rider had reached it Leta drew from her dress the magic powder and threw it over the cliff. “Make the ocean dry,” she screamed as she threw the powder, and, to her surprise, as she threw it over she went, too, and the next instant she stood beside Prince Roul on dry land before a beautiful white castle and the ocean was miles away. The cliff over which they had gone was the white rock where the ogre and the ogress lived, but when Leta threw the powder she had also summoned the little fairy who had given it to her and she had changed the big white cave into a castle. When the King’s servants came dashing up to the cliff they saw nothing of the Prince or his horse, and the bottom of the cliff was so far below that they felt sure they had been destroyed, and they rode home to the King with the sad news. [Pg 106] [Pg 106] The King’s grief was deep and bitter, for he really loved his son very much, and now when it was too late he cried out that he wished he had let the Prince marry the girl he loved; if only he had him alive that would be all he would ask. The little fairy did not make herself visible to
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