188 PRINCE RICARDO.

skins as hard as nails, and bright red, like
morocco.*

The prince did not lose his presence of mind;
hastily he threw the cake of crocodiles’ eggs,
millet-seed, and sugar-candy to the lions. This
is a dainty which lions can never resist, and
running greedily at it, with four tremendous
snaps, they got hold of each other by their
jaws, and their eight rows of teeth were
locked fast in a grim and deadly struggle for
existence !

The Dwarf took in the affair at a glance.

“Cursed be he who taught you this!” he
cried, and then whistled in a shrill and vulgar
manner on his very dirty fingers. At his call
rushed up an enormous Spanish cat, ready
saddled and bridled, and darting fire from its
eyes. To leap on its back, while Ricardo sprang
on his own steed, was to the active Dwarf the
work of a moment. Then clapping spurs to
its sides (his spurs grew naturally on his bare
heels, horrible to relate, like a cock’s spurs) and
taking his cat by the head, the Dwarf forced it
to leap on to Ricardo’s saddle. The diamond
sword which slew the king of the Golden Mines
—that invincible sword which hews iron like a
reed—was up and flashing in the air!

At this very moment King Prigio, seeing, in
the magic globe, all that passed, and despairing
of Ricardo’s life, was just about to wish the

* See the works of D’Aulnoy.