d on the
means to repel Furibon. Suddenly she beheld a head hanging in the air,
with nobody to hold it. This prodigy astonished her so, that she could
not tell what to think of it; but her amazement was increased when she
saw the head laid at her feet, and heard a voice utter these words:

"Charming princess, cease your fear
Of Furibon; whose head see here."

Abricotina, knowing Leander's voice, cried: "I protest, madam, the
invisible person who speaks is the very stranger that rescued me."

The princess seemed astonished, but yet pleased.

"Oh," said she, "if it be true that the invisible and the stranger are
the same person, I confess I shall be glad to make him my
acknowledgments."

Leander, still invisible, replied, "I will yet do more to deserve
them;" and so saying he returned to Furibon's army, where the report
of the king's death was already spread throughout the camp. As soon
as Leander appeared there in his usual habit, everybody knew him; all
the officers and soldiers surrounded him, uttering the loudest
acclamations of joy. In short, they acknowledged him for their king,
and that the crown of right belonged to him, for which he thanked
them, and, as the first mark of his royal bounty, divided the thirty
rooms of gold among the soldiers. This done, he returned to his
princess, ordering the army to march back into his kingdom.

The princess was gone to bed. Leander, therefore, retired into his own
apartment, for he was very sleepy--so sleepy that he forgot to bolt
his door; and so it happened that the princess, rising early to taste
the morning air, chanced to enter into this very chamber, and was
greatly astonished to find a young prince asleep upon the bed. She
took a full view of him, and was convinced that he was the person
whose picture she had in her diamond box. "It is impossible," said
she, "that this should be a spirit; for can spirits sleep? Is this a
body composed of air and fire, without substance, as Abricotina told
me?" She softly touched his hair, and heard him breathe and looked at
him as if she could have looked for ever. While she was thus occupied,
her mother, the fairy, entered with such a dreadful noise that Leander
started out of his sleep. But how deeply was he afflicted, to behold
his beloved princess in the most deplorable condition! Her mother
dragged her by the hair, and loaded her with a thousand bitter
reproaches. In what grief and consternation were the two young lo