nd her chat excite so much interest, replied
that it was all in consequence of a dream. "A dream!" exclaimed Huon.
"Yes! a dream. She dreamed that she was a hind, and that the Prince, as
a hunter, was pursuing her, and had almost overtaken her, when a
beautiful dwarf appeared in view, drawn in a golden car, having by his
side a young man of yellow hair and fair complexion, like one from a
foreign land. She dreamed that the car stopped where she stood, and
that, having resumed her own form, she was about to ascend it, when
suddenly it faded from her view, and with it the dwarf and the
fair-haired youth. But from her heart that vision did not fade, and
from that time her affianced bridegroom, the Hyrcanian prince, had
become odious to her sight. Yet the Sultan, her father, by no means
regarding such a cause as sufficient to prevent the marriage, had named
the morrow as the time when it should be solemnized, in presence of his
court and many princes of the neighboring countries, whom the fame of
the princess's beauty and the bridegroom's splendor had brought to the
scene."

We may suppose this conversation woke a tumult of thoughts in the
breast of Huon. Was it not clear that Providence led him on, and
cleared the way for his happy success? Sleep did not early visit the
eyes of Huon that night; but, with the sanguine temper of youth, he
indulged his fancy in imagining the sequel of his strange experience.

The next day, which he could not but regard as the decisive day of his
fate, he prepared to deliver the message of Charlemagne. Clad in his
armor, fortified with his ivory horn and his ring, he reached the
palace of Gaudisso when the guests were assembled at the banquet. As he
approached the gate a voice called on all true believers to enter; and
Huon, the brave and faithful Huon, in his impatience passed in under
that false pretention. He had no sooner passed the barrier than he felt
ashamed of his baseness, and was overwhelmed with regret. To make
amends for his fault he ran forward to the second gate, and cried to
the porter, "Dog of a misbeliever, I command you in the name of Him who
died on the cross, open to me!" The points of a hundred weapons
immediately opposed his passage. Huon then remembered for the first
time the ring he had received from his uncle, the Governor. He produced
it, and demanded to be led to the Sultan's presence. The officer of the
guard recognized the ring, made a respectful obeisance, and al