s to his golden ring, and after a short thunderstorm a shower of
gold covered the ground. The negroes, greedy of wealth, threw
themselves upon it, snatching from each other handfuls of the golden
rain. While thus engaged the fisherman unhooked the guzla from the
branches and hurried off into the courtyard with it. There he unfolded
his carpet, and sitting down upon it with the princess at his side,
flew high up into the air. He had not forgotten to bring with him the
cap, the club, and the ring; the princess took care of the guzla.

They floated across the blue sky, above the rustling forests and under
the clouds, and in a few days arrived at the palace. There they
descended, but the people still lay wrapped in the enchanted sleep,
from which they seemed to have no power of awakening.

The silence of the tomb reigned around. Some of the officers were
sitting, others standing, all motionless and rigid, and each one in
the position he occupied when last awake. The king held a goblet
filled with wine, for he had been giving a toast. The chamberlain had
his throat half filled with a lying tale, which there had been no time
to finish. One had the end of a joke upon his lips, another a dainty
morsel between his teeth, or a tale ready cooked upon his tongue.

And it was the same in all the villages throughout the length and
breadth of the land. All the inhabitants lay under the enchanted
spell. The labourer held his whip in the air, for he had been about to
strike his oxen. The harvesters with their sickles had stopped short
in their work. The shepherds slept by their sheep in the middle of the
road. The huntsman stood with the powder still alight on the pan of
his gun. The birds, arrested in their flight, hung in mid-air. The
animals in the woods were motionless. The water in the streams was
still. Even the wind slept. Everywhere men had been overtaken in their
occupations or amusements. It was a soundless land, without voice or
movement; on all sides calm, death, sleep.

The fisherman stood with the princess at his side in the
banqueting-hall where slept the king and his guests. Taking the magic
guzla from the maid, he pronounced these words:

"O guzla, play, and let thy sweetest harmonies resound
Through hall and cot, o'er hill and dale, and all the country round;
That by the power and beauty of thy heavenly tones and song
Awakened may these sleepers be who sleep too well, too long."

When the first tones of m