especially the timidest of the ladies, that would almost scare a person
to death by the way they screamed when they were frightened. The General
was just going to say that the guns and cannon had all got rusty, and
the powder was spoiled from not having been used for so long, with the
everlasting cleaning up that had been going on; but the fairy godmother
stamped her foot and sent him flying. So the only thing he could do was
to set all the gnomes at work making guns and cannon and powder, and
about twelve o'clock they had them ready, and just after lunch the sham
battle began.

"The troops marched and counter-marched, and fired away the whole
afternoon, and sprang mines and blew up magazines, and threw cannon
crackers and cannon torpedoes. There was such an awful din and racket
that you couldn't hear yourself think, and some of the court ladies were
made perfectly sick by it. They all asked to be excused, but the fairy
godmother wouldn't excuse one of them. She just kept them there on the
seats round the battle-field, and let them shriek themselves hoarse. So
many of them fainted that they had to have the garden hose brought, and
they kept it sprinkling away on their faces all the afternoon.

[Illustration: "THEY BEGAN TO SCREAM, 'OH, THE COW! THE COW!'"]

"But it was a failure as far as the Khan and the Khant were concerned.
The fairy godmother expected that as soon as the loudest firing began,
the girl, whichever it was, would scream, and so they would know
which was which. But the Khan and Khant's father had been a famous
warrior, and he had been in the habit of taking his children to battle
with him from their earliest years, partly because his wife was dead and
he didn't dare trust them with the careless nurse at home, and partly
because he wanted to harden their nerves. So now they just clapped their
hands, and enjoyed the sham battle down to the ground.

"About sunset the fairy godmother gave it up. She had to, anyway. The
troops had shot away all their powder, and the gnomes couldn't make any
more till the next day. So she set out to return to the city, with all
the court following her diamond chariot, and I can tell you she felt
pretty gloomy. She told the Grand Vizier that now she didn't see any end
to the trouble, and she was just going into hysterics when a barefooted
boy came along driving his cow home from the pasture. The fairy
godmother didn't mind it much, for she was in her chariot; but the court
l