ut what it was the fisherman could not guess, and if you do not
know I shall not tell you.

Then for the first time the beautiful lady seemed to notice the
fisherman. She beckoned him, and when he stood beside her two men came
carrying a chest. The chief treasurer opened it, and it was full of bags
of gold money. "How will you have it?" said the beautiful lady.

"Have what?" said the fisherman.

"Have the pay for your labor?" said the beautiful lady.

"I will," said the fisherman, promptly, "take it in my hat."

"So be it," said the beautiful lady. She waved her hand, and the chief
treasurer took a bag from the chest, untied it, and emptied a cataract
of gold into the fur cap. The fisherman had never seen so much wealth in
all his life before, and he stood like a man turned to stone.

"Is this all mine?" said the fisherman.

"It is," said the beautiful lady.

"Then God bless your pretty eyes," said the fisherman.

Then the magician kissed the beautiful lady, and, beckoning to the
fisherman, left the throne-room the same way that they had come. The
noblemen, in silks and satins and velvets, marched ahead, and back they
went through the other apartments, until at last they came to the door.

Out they stepped, and then what do you suppose happened?

If the wonderful palace had grown like a bubble, like a bubble it
vanished. There the two stood on the sea-shore, with nothing to be seen
but rocks and sand and water, and the starry sky overhead.

The fisherman shook his cap of gold, and it jingled and tinkled, and was
as heavy as lead. If it was not all a dream, he was rich for life. "But
anyhow," said he, "they might have given a body a bite to eat."

The magician put on his red clothes and his face again, making himself
as hoary and as old as before. He took out his flint and steel, and
his sticks of spice-wood and his gray powder, and made a great fire and
smoke just as he had done before. Then again he tied his handkerchief
over the fisherman's eyes. "Remember," said he, "what I told you when we
started upon our journey. Keep your mouth tight shut, for if you utter
so much as a single word you are a lost man. Now throw your leg over
what you feel and hold fast."

The fisherman had his net over one arm and his cap of gold in the other
hand; nevertheless, there he felt the same hairy thing he had felt
before. He flung his leg over it, and away he was gone through the air
like a sky-rocket.

Now, he had grow