Twilight Land | Page 5

until he reached the town-gate,
and there was the old man waiting for him.
"Did you shoot the bird?" said he.
"I did," said the soldier.
"And did you get the cap and the round stone?"
"I did."
"Then here is your dollar."
"Wait a bit," said the soldier, "I shot greater game that time than I
bargained for, and so it's ten dollars and not one you shall pay me
before you lay finger upon the feather cap and the little stone."
"Very well," said the old man, "here are ten dollars."
"Ho! ho!" thought the soldier, "is that the way the wind blows?"--"Did I
say ten dollars?" said he; " twas a hundred dollars I meant."
At that the old man frowned until his eyes shone green. "Very well,"
said he, "if it is a hundred dollars you want, you will have to come
home with me, for I have not so much with me. Thereupon he entered
the town with the soldier at his heels.
Up one street he went and down another, until at last he came to a great,
black, ancient ramshackle house; and that was where he lived. In he
walked without so much as a rap at the door, and so led the way to a
great room with furnaces and books and bottles and jars and dust and
cobwebs, and three grinning skulls upon the mantelpiece, each with a
candle stuck atop of it, and there he left the soldier while he went to get
the hundred dollars.
The soldier sat him down upon a three-legged stool in the corner and
began staring about him; and he liked the looks of the place as little as
any he had seen in all of his life, for it smelled musty and dusty, it did:
the three skulls grinned at him, and he began to think that the little old
man was no better than he should be. "I wish," says he, at last, "that
instead of being here I might be well out of my scrape and in a safe
place."
Now the little old man in scarlet was a great magician, and there was
little or nothing in that house that had not some magic about it, and of
all things the three-legged stool had been conjured the most.

"I wish that instead of being here I might be well out of my scrape, and
in a safe place." That was what the soldier said; and hardly had the
words left his lips when--whisk! whir!--away flew the stool through the
window, so suddenly that the soldier had only just time enough to gripe
it tight by the legs to save himself from falling. Whir! whiz!--away it
flew like a bullet. Up and up it went--so high in the air that the earth
below looked like a black blanket spread out in the night; and then
down it came again, with the soldier still griping tight to the legs, until
at last it settled as light as a feather upon a balcony of the king's palace;
and when the soldier caught his wind again he found himself without a
hat, and with hardly any wits in his head.
There he sat upon the stool for a long time without daring to move, for
he did not know what might happen to him next. There he sat and sat,
and by-and-by his ears got cold in the night air, and then he noticed for
the first time that he had lost his head gear, and bethought himself of
the feather cap in his pocket. So out he drew it and clapped it upon his
head, and then--lo and behold!--he found he had become as invisible as
thin air--not a shred or a hair of him could be seen. "Well!" said he,
"here is another wonder, but I am safe now at any rate." And up he got
to find some place not so cool as where he sat.
He stepped in at an open window, and there he found himself in a
beautiful room, hung with cloth of silver and blue, and with chairs and
tables of white and gold; dozens and scores of waxlights shone like so
many stars, and lit every crack and cranny as bright as day, and there at
one end of the room upon a couch, with her eyelids closed and fast
asleep, lay the prettiest princess that ever the sun shone upon. The
soldier stood and looked and looked at her, and looked and looked at
her, until his heart melted within him like soft butter, and then he
kissed her.
"Who is that?" said the princess, starting up, wide-awake, but not a soul
could she see, because the soldier had the feather cap upon his head.
"It is