On the first story one window was lighted, and John saw on the curtains
the shadow of the Princess.

'I wish myself in the room of the Princess Ludovine,' said he, and in a
second he was there.

The King's daughter was sitting before a table counting the money that
she emptied from the inexhaustible purse.

'Eight hundred and fifty, nine hundred, nine hundred and fifty----'

'A thousand,' finished John. 'Good evening everybody!'

The Princess jumped and gave a little cry. '_You_ here! What business
have you to do it? Leave at once, or I shall call----'

'I have come,' said the Kinglet, 'to remind you of your promise. The day
after to-morrow is Easter Day, and it is high time to think of our
marriage.'

Ludovine burst out into a fit of laughter. 'Our marriage! Have you
really been foolish enough to believe that the daughter of the King of
the Low Countries would ever marry the son of a boatman?'

'Then give me back the purse,' said John.

'Never,' said the Princess, and put it calmly in her pocket.

'As you like,' said the little soldier. 'He laughs best who laughs the
last;' and he took the Princess in his arms. 'I wish,' he cried, 'that
we were at the ends of the earth;' and in one second he was there, still
clasping the Princess tightly in his arms.

'Ouf,' said John, laying her gently at the foot of a tree. 'I never took
such a long journey before. What do you say, madam?' The Princess
understood that it was no time for jesting, and did not answer. Besides
she was still feeling giddy from her rapid flight, and had not yet
collected her senses.

VI

The King of the Low Countries was not a very scrupulous person, and his
daughter took after him. This was why she had been changed into a
serpent. It had been prophesied that she should be delivered by a little
soldier, and that she must marry him, unless he failed to appear at the
meeting-place three times running. The cunning Princess then laid her
plans accordingly.

The wine that she had given to John in the castle of the goblins, the
bouquet of immortelles, and the scarf, all had the power of producing
sleep like death. And we know how they had acted on John.

However, even in this critical moment, Ludovine did not lose her head.

'I thought you were simply a street vagabond,' said she, in her most
coaxing voice; 'and I find you are more powerful than any king. Here is
your purse. Have you got my scarf and my bouquet?'

'Here they are,' said