round, when there was a flash
of flame, and the bird-boy's mother stood before them. She took her son
in her arms, and told them all his history and her misfortunes, and how
she had watched over him year after year and gathered the birds to save
him.

Thus it came to pass that, when the troops of Malefico saw their former
Queen and heard her story, they acclaimed the bird-boy as their rightful
king, and carried him back in triumph into his own country. So the
bird-boy became a king, married Rosabella, and lived happily ever after.

THE MASTER MARINER

Once upon a time a fine young fisherman rose early in the morning, and
sailed alone to the fishing-grounds. There was very little wind, and
beneath the speckled clouds and the cold, pearly light of the late dawn,
the broad, low billows went slowly and unrippled to the land.

The fisherman cast anchor, and threw overboard his lines. Suddenly his
boat moved uneasily, and close to its side the oily surface of the pale
sea broke into a tumbling mass of foam. In the heart of the troubled
waters, the fisherman beheld, to his great astonishment, a man clad in a
strange garment of gleaming black scales, struggling with an enormous
scarlet fish. A battle of life and death they fought, the man of the sea
trying to stab the fish with a short dagger of shining steel, the fish
trying, wolf-like, to tear at the body of its enemy. Now, with a swift
lash of its bright scarlet body, the fish would rush at the man; now,
with a long sure stroke of his powerful arms, the man would escape the
attack. Suddenly, the fish hurled itself clear out of the water, and
falling against the man, struck him a terrible blow with its tail. Then
the ocean man, who was stunned for a moment, would have perished, had
not the young fisherman swiftly seized his spear and plunged deep into
the body of the fish. Mortally wounded, the scarlet creature sank
through the sunless waters, the dark blood flowing from its side.

The man of the sea clutched the rail of the boat with his webbed hands,
and said to the fisherman, "I am the King of the Caves of the Sea. I owe
you my life, and you shall have a reward. Take this little silver fish.
It will bring you good fortune; and should you ever be in deadly peril,
you have but to cast it into the sea, and it will come and find me."

The fisherman thanked the King of the Caves, and took the silver fish.
It was about the length of your little finger, and had pale