TWILIGHT LAND

so when the three reached him he was willing enough to
go with them, rough as they were.

Off they marched ; but this time they did not come to
any garden with fruits and flowers and fountains and
marble baths. Off they marched, and when they stopped
it was in front of the king’s palace. This time no nobles
and great lords and courtiers were waiting for his coming ;
but instead of that the town hangman—a great ugly
fellow, clad in black from head to foot. Up he came to
the beggar, and, catching him by the scruff of the neck,

dragged him up the palace steps and from room to room
until at last he flung him down at the king’s feet.

When the poor beggar gathered wits enough to look
about him he saw there a great chest standing wide open,
and with holes in the lid. He wondered what it was for,
but the king gave him no chance to ask ; for, beckoning
with his hand, the hangman and the others caught the
beggar by arms and legs, thrust him into the chest, and
banged down the lid upon him.

The king locked it and double-locked it, and set his
seal upon it ; and there was the beggar as tight as a fly
in a bottle.

They carried the chest out and thrust it into a cart and
hauled it away, until at last they came to the sea-shore.
There they flung chest and all into the water, and it
floated away like a cork. And that is how the king set
about to ruin the poor beggar-man.

Well, the chest floated on and on for three days, and
then at last it came to the shore of a country far away.
There the waves caught it up, and flung it so hard upon
the rocks of the sea-beach that the chest was burst open
by the blow, and the beggar crawled out with eyes as big

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