"Where is the princess?" asked he, looking round him.

"What princess?" asked the man.

"The Princess Bertha--our future queen, and my lawful wife," replied
Hans.

"The Princess Bertha!" exclaimed one.

"Your wife!" laughed another.

"Why, the man's mad, or else is not quite sober yet," cried a third.

"Stay," said the fourth; "it is possible he has got the dwarf princess
concealed about his person. So much the better, we shall get them both
together, and divide the reward between us. Let us search him."

"Ha! is that so?" said the first.

A rigid search was made on the person of Hans, but they found not the
princess.

"Hold there, ruffians!" cried Hans. "Ye shall do the princess no harm.
Do you hear; for, besides being your rightful queen, she is my wife."

A general laugh ensued. Hans was no less puzzled than the men themselves
at her disappearance.

"Where can she be?" quoth he. "All last night she was watching beside
me, like a true wife, and now----"

"Come, the fellow is dreaming still, or else trying to befool us," cried
one of the men, at length. "Let us hasten with him to the princess."

Hans was then conducted into the palace, and led into an amphitheatre,
where the late king was wont to listen to stage plays, singing,
recitations, and such like.

The theatre was crowded, and in a conspicuous place he noticed the
Princess Clothilde and her sister Carlotta.

"Welcome, Sir Peasant Knight. Welcome, Sir Woodchopper," said the
princesses, mockingly.

"We have heard of your great deeds of yesterday, Sir Knight," said the
Princess Clothilde. "Surely such bravery deserves a reward."

Then, turning to one of the men who accompanied Hans, she added: "Give
the brave knight the reward he merits."

The men had previously been instructed how Hans was to be treated, so
one of them proceeded to strip him to the waist, whilst another took
from behind a column a cat-o'-nine-tails, with which he belaboured the
naked shoulders of our knight with such force that he drew blood at
every stroke, while the spectators applauded and the princesses laughed.

Hans bore his flogging without wincing, though his back was streaming
with blood. The Princess Bertha was with her husband all the while,
though invisible. She was touched at the cruel spectacle, and her blood
rose in indignation against her sisters, yet she would not yet come
forward to assist her husband. He had been in the wrong, and he must
take the conseq