is my turn to be master now; so bring me his daughter here this
evening, that she may wait upon me and do what I bid her."

"That is rather a dangerous task," said the dwarf. But away he went,
took the princess out of her bed, fast asleep as she was, and brought
her to the soldier.

Very early in the morning he carried her back; and as soon as she saw
her father, she said, "I had a strange dream last night. I thought I was
carried away through the air to a soldier's house, and there I waited
upon him as his servant." Then the king wondered greatly at such a
story; but told her to make a hole in her pocket and fill it with peas,
so that if it were really as she said, and the whole was not a dream,
the peas might fall out in the streets as she passed through, and leave
a clue to tell whither she had been taken. She did so; but the dwarf had
heard the king's plot; and when evening came, and the soldier said he
must bring him the princess again, he strewed peas over several of the
streets, so that the few that fell from her pocket were not known from
the others; and the people amused themselves all the next day picking up
peas and wondering where so many came from.

When the princess told her father what had happened to her the second
time, he said, "Take one of your shoes with you and hide it in the room
you are taken to."

The dwarf heard this also; and when the soldier told him to bring the
king's daughter again, he said, "I cannot save you this time; it will be
an unlucky thing for you if you are found out--as I think you will." But
the soldier would have his own way. "Then you must take care and make
the best of your way out of the city gate very early in the morning,"
said the dwarf.

The princess kept one shoe on as her father bid her, and hid it in the
soldier's room; and when she got back to her father, he ordered it to be
sought for all over the town; and at last it was found where she had hid
it. The soldier had run away, it is true; but he had been too slow and
was soon caught and thrown into a strong prison and loaded with chains.
What was worse, in the hurry of his flight, he had left behind him his
great treasure, the blue light, and all his gold, and had nothing left
in his pocket but one poor ducat.

As he was standing very sorrowful at the prison grating, he saw one of
his comrades, and calling out to him said, "If you will bring me a
little bundle I left in the inn, I will give you a ducat."

His