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silent and motionless--each a stone as white as alabaster. At last
they entered an apartment in the very centre of the palace. There sat
seven-and-forty female attendants around a couch of purple and gold.
Each of the seven-and-forty was beautiful beyond what the young man
could have believed possible, and each was clad in a garment of silk
as white as snow, embroidered with threads of silver and studded with
glistening diamonds. But each sat silent and motionless--each was a
stone as white as alabaster.

Upon the couch in the centre of the apartment reclined a queen with a
crown of gold upon her head. She lay there motionless, still. She was
cold and dead--of stone as white as marble. The young man approached and
looked into her face, and when he looked his breath became faint and his
heart grew soft within him like wax in a flame of fire.

He sighed; he melted; the tears burst from his eyes and ran down his
cheeks. "Zadok!" he cried--"Zadok! Zadok! What have you done to show
me this wonder of beauty and love! Alas! That I have seen her; for the
world is nothing to me now. O Zadok! That she were flesh and blood,
instead of cold stone! Tell me, Zadok, I command you to tell me, was
she once really alive as I am alive, and did my father truly turn her to
stone as she lies here?"

"She was really alive as thou art alive, and he did truly transform her
to this stone," said Zadok.

"And tell me," said the young man, "can she never become alive again?"

"She can become alive, and it lies with you to make her alive," said the
Demon. "Listen, O master. Thy father possessed a wand, half of silver
and half of gold. Whatsoever he touched with silver became converted
to stone, such as thou seest all around thee here; but whatsoever, O
master, he touched with the gold, it became alive, even if it were a
dead stone."

"Tell me, Zadok," cried the young man; "I command you to tell me, where
is that wand of silver and gold?"

"I have it with me," said Zadok.

"Then give it to me; I command you to give it to me."

"I hear and obey," said Zadok. He drew from his girdle a wand, half of
gold and half of silver, as he spoke, and gave it to the young man.

"Thou mayst go now, Zadok," said the young man, trembling with
eagerness.

Zadok laughed and vanished. The young man stood for a while looking down
at the beautiful figure of alabaster. Then he touched the lips with the
golden tip of the wand. In an instant there came a marv