if her heart would break! By the light of the moon, which had now
broken through the clouds, Ting-a-ling saw that she was tied fast to the
chair. So he climbed up on her shoulder, and called her by name; and
when the Princess heard him and knew him, she took him into her lovely
hands, and kissed him, and cried over him, and laughed over him so much,
that her joy had like to have been the death of him. When she got over
her excitement, she told him how she had been stolen away; how she had
heard her favorite cat squeak in the middle of the night, and how she
had got up quickly to go to it, supposing it had been squeezed in some
door, and how the wicked dwarf, who had been imitating the cat, was just
outside the door with his slaves; and how they had seized her, and bound
her, and carried her off to this castle, without waking up any of the
King's household. Then Ting-a-ling told her that his five friends were
there, and that they were going to see what they could do; and the
Princess was very glad to hear that, you may be sure. Then Ting-a-ling
slipped down to the floor, and through the key-hole; and as he entered
the room where he had left Zamcar, in came Alcahazar with the key and
the other magicians with news that everybody was asleep. When
Ting-a-ling had told about the Princess, Alcahazar pushed aside the
curtains, unlocked the door with the key, and they all entered the next
room.

There, sure enough, was the Princess Aufalia; but, right in front of
her, on the floor, squatted the dwarf, who had missed his key, and had
slipped up by a back way! The magicians started back on seeing him; the
Princess was crying bitterly, and Ting-a-ling ran past the dwarf (who
was laughing too horribly to notice him), and climbing upon the
Princess's shoulder, sat there among her curls, and did his best to
comfort her.

"Anyway," said he, "_I_ shall not leave you again," and he drew his
little sword, and felt as big as a house. The magicians now advanced
towards the dwarf; but he, it seems, was a bit of a magician himself,
for he waved a little wand, and instantly a strong partition of iron
wire rose up out of the floor, and, reaching from one wall to the other,
separated him completely from the five men. The magicians no sooner saw
this, than they cried out, "O ho! Mr. Dwarf, is that your game?"

"Yes," said the little wretch, chuckling; "can you play at it?"

"A little," said they; and each one pulled from under his cloak a long