icky jam, that he could not
speak and could hardly move. So, taking an oil-cloth bag from under his
cloak, Alcahazar dropped the dwarf into it, and tied it up, and hung it
to his girdle. The two youngest magicians made a sort of chair out of a
shawl, and they carried the Princess on it between them, very
comfortably; and as Ting-a-ling still remained on her shoulder, she
began to feel that things were beginning to look brighter. They then
asked the poor boy what he would like best as a reward for what he had
done; and he said that if they would shut him up in that room, and lock
the door tight, and lose the key, he would be happy all the days of his
life. So they left the boy (who knew what was good, and was already
sucking away at a jar of preserved green-gages) in the room, and they
shut the door and locked it tight, and lost the key; and he lived there
for ninety-one years, eating preserves; and when they were all gone, he
died. All that time he never had any clothes but his baby-clothes, and
they got pretty sticky before his death. Then our party left the castle;
and as they passed the slaves still fast asleep, the three oldest
magicians took from under their cloaks watering-pots, filled with water
that makes men sleep, and they watered the slaves with it, until they
were wet enough to sleep a week. When they went through the gates of
copper, brass, iron, and wood, they left them all open behind them. They
had not gone far before they saw seventy-five men, all sitting in a row
at the side of the road, and looking woefully indeed. They had been wet
to the skin, and were now frozen stiff, not one of them being able to
move anything but his eyelids, and they were all crying as if their
hearts would break. So the magicians stopped, and the three oldest each
took from under his cloak a pair of bellows, and they blew hot air on
the poor creatures until they were all thawed. Then Alcahazar told them
to go up to the castle, and take it for their own, and live there all
the rest of their lives. He informed them that the dwarf was his
prisoner, and that the slaves would sleep for a week.

[Illustration]

When the seventy-five guests (for those who had been taken from the
feast, had joined their comrades) heard this, they all started up, and
ran like deer for the castle; and when they reached it, they woke up
their comrades, and took possession, and lived there all their lives.
The man who had been first thrown through the wi