ind
securely the six, that we lose not their guards. Can you find me a
horse, think you, Sir Bronzebeard? Alas! they told me my white charger
was dead.'

'I will go and fright the varletry with my presence, and secure, I
trust, a horse for Your Majesty, and one for myself.'

'And look you, brother!' said the king; 'bring one for my miner boy
too, and a sober old charger for the princess, for she too must go to
the battle, and conquer with us.'

'Pardon me, sire,' said Curdie; 'a miner can fight best on foot. I
might smite my horse dead under me with a missed blow. And besides
that, I must be near to my beasts.'

'As you will,' said the king. 'Three horses then, Sir Bronzebeard.'

The colonel departed, doubting sorely in his heart how to accoutre and
lead from the barrack stables three horses, in the teeth of his
revolted regiment.

In the hall he met the housemaid.

'Can you lead a horse?' he asked.

'Yes, sir.'

'Are you willing to die for the king?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Can you do as you are bid?'

'I can keep on trying, sir.'

'Come then. Were I not a man I would be a woman such as you.'

When they entered the barrack yard, the soldiers scattered like autumn
leaves before a blast of winter. They went into the stable
unchallenged--and lo! in a stall, before the colonel's eyes, stood the
king's white charger, with the royal saddle and bridle hung high beside
him!

'Traitorous thieves!' muttered the old man in his beard, and went along
the stalls, looking for his own black charger. Having found him, he
returned to saddle first the king's. But the maid had already the
saddle upon him, and so girt that the colonel could thrust no finger
tip between girth and skin. He left her to finish what she had so well
begun, and went and made ready his own. He then chose for the princess
a great red horse, twenty years old, which he knew to possess every
equine virtue. This and his own he led to the palace, and the maid led
the king's.

The king and Curdie stood in the court, the king in full armour of
silvered steel, with a circlet of rubies and diamonds round his helmet.
He almost leaped for joy when he saw his great white charger come in,
gentle as a child to the hand of the housemaid. But when the horse saw
his master in his armour, he reared and bounded in jubilation, yet did
not break from the hand that held him. Then out came the princess
attired and ready, with a hunting knife her father had given