TWILIGHT LAND

of a beautiful woman made of alabaster, and around the
neck of the statue was a thread of gold. The queen
stood beside the statue, and beat and beat it with her
steel-tipped whip. And all the while she lashed it the
statue sighed and groaned like a living being, and the
tears ran down its stone cheeks as though it were a
suffering Christian. By-and-by the queen rested for a
moment, and said, panting, “ Will you give me the thread
of gold?” and the statue answered “ No.” Whereupon
she fell to raining blows upon it as she had done before.

So she continued, now beating the statue and now
asking it whether it would give her the thread of
gold, to which the statue always answered “No,” and
all the while the prince stood gazing and wondering. By-
and-by the queen wearied of what she was doing, and
thrust the steel-tipped lash back into her bosom again,
upon which the prince, seeing that she was done, hurried
back to the garden where she had left him and pretended
to be gathering the golden fruit and jewel flowers.

The queen said nothing to him good or bad, except to
command him to grind at the great stone mill as he had
done on the other side of the water. Thereupon the prince
did as she bade, and presently the brazen boat came
skimming over the water more swiftly than the wind.
Again the queen and the prince entered it, and again it
carried them to the other side whence they had come.

No sooner had the queen set foot upon the shore than
she stooped and gathered up a handful of sand. Then,
turning as quick as lightning, she flung it into the prince’s
face. ‘Bea black dog,” she cried in a loud voice, ‘‘and
join your comrades !”

And now it was that the ring that the prince’s mother

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