Sandmans Rainy Day Stories | Page 3

the moonlight, the nightingales could be heard among the roses, and the air was filled with rich perfume.
When they reached the lower end of the garden Cantilla suddenly stopped and stood very still. She was beside a fountain, and honeysuckle grew over an arbor close beside it.
Cantilla remembered the words of the dwarf she had seen in her dream, and his words, "I will come for your reply to-night at the fountain where the honeysuckle grows."
The fairy stood on a bush beside her. "You remember now, do you not?" she asked. "You see it was not a dream this morning, and you are not dreaming now, my Princess, but I cannot help you. I have finished my work and must return to my Queen. Farewell!"
Cantilla watched the fairy disappear without uttering a single word. She saw in her mind's eye only the ugly features of the dwarf and heard his words.
In another minute she saw what looked like a cloud near the honeysuckle arbor, and in another minute the dwarf of the morning stood before her with the ends of his long white beard thrown over one arm.
"I have come, Princess Cantilla, for my answer," said the dwarf. "Marry me and all you have seen shall be yours."
Cantilla threw out her hands as she had in the morning and started to reply, but the dwarf checked her. "Before you give your answer," he said, "think of your old father and how contented and happy he looked surrounded by the comforts of his former days of prosperity."
Cantilla let her hands fall by her side, her head bent low, and she stood lost in thought. She saw again her old father in his bed of gold, and the face that looked so happy, then she raised her head without looking at the ugly creature before her and said: "I consent; I will become your wife; I cannot love you, but I will wed you if that will content you."
"Follow me, then," said the dwarf, throwing his long beard over his head and letting it fall over Cantilla as he spoke.
Cantilla saw only a fleecy cloud closing all about her, and the next thing she knew she was on a little island in the middle of a deep blue ocean, with the dwarf standing beside her.
The dwarf, with his beard still over one arm, held his hands to his mouth and gave a long, loud call, which seemed to descend to the depths of the ocean.
Up from the water came an arm and hand holding a twisted shell, and then Cantilla saw a head appear and blow a long, loud blast from the shell.
A splashing was heard, and out of the water came an old man in a chariot of mother-of-pearl.
The chariot was drawn by two horses with feet and manes of gold, and in one hand the old man carried a long wand with three prongs at one end.
The old man struck the water with the queer-looking wand, and from all over the surface of the water come the sea nymphs and all sorts of monsters and creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean.
But when the mermaids appeared the old man sent them back quickly and drove his chariot toward Cantilla and the dwarf.
Cantilla by this time was beyond being frightened or surprised, and she stood beside the dwarf waiting for the next thing to happen.
"My Lord Neptune," said the dwarf, bowing low as the old man drove close to the island on which Cantilla and the dwarf stood, "I have come with my Princess for you to perform the ceremony. She has consented to become my wife."
"What!" cried the old man, in an angry voice, "do you mean you have found a Princess who will consent to have such a husband as you are--ugly and misshapen wretch?"
"Answer him, my Princess," said the dwarf. "Tell my Lord Neptune you consent to marry me."
"I do consent to marry the dwarf," Cantilla managed to say, and again the old man struck the water, this time in anger, and the water spouted about them like huge fountains throwing up rivers.
Cantilla felt the dwarf take her hand, and he said, "Fear not, my Princess; it will soon be over."
In a few minutes the water was calm again, and the old man in the chariot stood a little way off, surrounded by the nymphs and other creatures, holding the three-pronged wand high over his head.
"I release you; you are wed; be gone from my sight," said the old man, and as the trumpet-bearer sounded his loud call, the old man and his chariot passed into the deep water, followed by all his nymphs and the others.
Cantilla looked toward the dwarf, wondering if ever any one had such a strange wedding, but to her surprise he