, if they could, to carry off with them the
king's young daughter.

Guleesh and his companions were standing together at the head of the
hall, where there was a fine altar dressed up, and two bishops behind
it waiting to marry the girl, as soon as the right time should come.
Now nobody could see the sheehogues, for they said a word as they came
in, that made them all invisible, as if they had not been in it at all.

"Tell me which of them is the king's daughter," said Guleesh, when he
was becoming a little used to the noise and the light.

"Don't you see her there away from you?" said the little man that he
was talking to.

Guleesh looked where the little man was pointing with his finger, and
there he saw the loveliest woman that was, he thought, upon the ridge
of the world. The rose and the lily were fighting together in her face,
and one could not tell which of them got the victory. Her arms and
hands were like the lime, her mouth as red as a strawberry when it is
ripe, her foot was as small and as light as another one's hand, her
form was smooth and slender, and her hair was falling down from her
head in buckles of gold. Her garments and dress were woven with gold
and silver, and the bright stone that was in the ring on her hand was
as shining as the sun.

Guleesh was nearly blinded with all the loveliness and beauty that was
in her; but when he looked again, he saw that she was crying, and that
there was the trace of tears in her eyes. "It can't be," said Guleesh,
"that there's grief on her, when everybody round her is so full of
sport and merriment."

"Musha, then, she is grieved," said the little man; "for it's against
her own will she's marrying, and she has no love for the husband she is
to marry. The king was going to give her to him three years ago, when
she was only fifteen, but she said she was too young, and requested him
to leave her as she was yet. The king gave her a year's grace, and when
that year was up he gave her another year's grace, and then another;
but a week or a day he would not give her longer, and she is eighteen
years old to-night, and it's time for her to marry; but, indeed," says
he, and he crooked his mouth in an ugly way--"indeed, it's no king's
son she'll marry, if I can help it."

Guleesh pitied the handsome young lady greatly when he heard that, and
he was heart-broken to think that it would be necessary for her to
marry a man she did not like, or, what was worse, to take a n