TWILIGHT LAND

passing by. It was the first time that the Tailor had seen
her, and when he saw her his heart stood still within him,
and then began fluttering like a little bird, for one so
beautiful was not to be met with in the four corners of the
world. Then she was gone.

All that day the little Tailor could do nothing but sit
and think of the princess, and the next. morning when the
Demon came he was thinking of her still.

“What hast thou for me to do to-day ?” said the Demon,
as hs always said of a morning.

The little Tailor was waiting for the question.

“I would like you,” said he, “to send to the king’s
palace, and to ask him to let me have his daughter for my
wife.”

“Thou shalt have thy desire,” said the Demon. There-
upon he smote his hands together like a clap of thunder,
and instantly the walls of the room clove asunder, and
there came out four-and-twenty handsome youths, . clad
in cloth of gold and silver. After these four-and-twenty
there came another one who was the chief of them all, and
before whom, splendid as they were, the four-and-twenty
paled like stars in daylight. “ Go to the king’s palace,”
said the Demon to that one, “and deliver this message :
The Tailor of Tailors, the Master of Masters, and One
Greater than a King, asks for his daughter to wife.”

“To hear is to obey,” said the other, and bowed his
forehead to the earth.

Never was there:such a hubbub in the town as when
those five-and-twenty, in their clothes of silver and gold,
rode through the streets to the king’s palace. As they
came near, the gates of the palace flew open before them,
and the king himself came out to meet them. The leader

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