the one that the monk Magis had clothed
with his own hands and thus was the first to have worn the garments
of chastity. In remembrance of the day when the astonished crowd of
Penguins had seen her moving gloriously in her robe tinted like the
dawn, this maiden had received the name of Orberosia.*

* "Orb, poetically, a globe when speaking of the heavenly
bodies. By extension any species of globular body."--Littre

At the sight of Kraken she uttered a cry of alarm and darted forward to
escape from him. But the hero seized her by the garments that floated
behind, her, and addressed her in these words:

"Damsel, tell me thy name, thy family and thy country."

But Orberosia kept looking at Kraken with alarm.

"Is it you, I see, sir," she asked him, trembling, "or is it not rather
your troubled spirit?"

She spoke in this way because the inhabitants of Alca, having no news of
Kraken since he went to live on the Beach of Shadows, believed that he
had died and descended among the demons of night.

"Cease to fear, daughter of Alca," answered Kraken. "He who speaks to
thee is not a wandering spirit, but a man full of strength and might. I
shall soon possess great riches."

And young Orberosia asked:

"How dost thou think of acquiring great riches, O Kraken, since thou art
a child of Penguins?"

"By my intelligence," answered Kraken.

"I know," said Orberosia, "that in the time that thou dwelt among us
thou wert renowned for thy skill in hunting and fishing. No one equalled
thee in taking fishes in a net or in piercing with thy arrows the
swift-flying birds."

"It was but a vulgar and laborious industry, O maiden. I have found a
means of gaining much wealth for myself without fatigue. But tell me who
thou art?"

"I am called Orberosia," answered the young girl.

"Why art thou so far away from thy dwelling and in the night?"

"Kraken, it was not without the will of Heaven."

"What meanest thou, Orberosia?"

"That Heaven, O Kraken, placed me in thy path, for what reason I know
not."

Kraken beheld her for a long time in silence.

Then he said with gentleness:

"Orberosia, come into my house; it is that of the bravest and most
ingenious of the sons of the Penguins. If thou art willing to follow me,
I will make thee my companion."

Then casting down her eyes, she murmured:

"I will follow thee, master."

It is thus that the fair Orberosia became the consort of the hero
Kraken. This marriage w