beyond being frightened or surprised, and she stood beside[Pg 14] the dwarf waiting for the next thing to happen.

[Pg 14]

“My Lord Neptune,” said the dwarf, bowing low as the old man drove close to the island on which Cantilla and the dwarf stood, “I have come with my Princess for you to perform the ceremony. She has consented to become my wife.”

“What!” cried the old man, in an angry voice, “do you mean you have found a Princess who will consent to have such a husband as you are—ugly and misshapen wretch?”

“Answer him, my Princess,” said the dwarf. “Tell my Lord Neptune you consent to marry me.”

“I do consent to marry the dwarf,” Cantilla managed to say, and again the old man struck the water, this time in anger, and the water spouted about them like huge fountains throwing up rivers.

Cantilla felt the dwarf take her hand, and he said, “Fear not, my Princess; it will soon be over.”

In a few minutes the water was calm again, and the old man in the chariot stood a little way off, surrounded by the nymphs and other[Pg 15] creatures, holding the three-pronged wand high over his head.

[Pg 15]

“I release you; you are wed; be gone from my sight,” said the old man, and as the trumpet-bearer sounded his loud call, the old man and his chariot passed into the deep water, followed by all his nymphs and the others.

Cantilla looked toward the dwarf, wondering if ever any one had such a strange wedding, but to her surprise he was gone and by her side stood a handsome man, who said: “My Princess, behold in me your husband. I am free from the spell of the old man of the sea, who wanted me to become a sea monster and live under the ocean.

“I was changed into the shape of the ugly dwarf because I would not marry a mermaid who happened to fall in love with me one day while I was bathing, and she called upon a sea witch to change me into a sea monster, but I escaped before I took on the sea shape, but not before I was changed into the ugly dwarf you saw this morning.

“A kind fairy interceded with her Queen to save me, and she went to the old man, who is Neptune, the God of the Waters. He told the Queen if I could find a princess who would[Pg 16] consent to marry me he would release me from the spell 

 Prev. P 9/97 next