The Sleeping Beauty Part 5

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Everywhere there was the same deep silence. The air, which should have been full of the twittering of birds, was heavy and languorous. There was no flutter of b.u.t.terfly-wings or darting of flies; the fountains on the lawns were not playing, and as the Prince glanced over the edge of the marble basin of one of them he could see the goldfish beneath the water-lily leaves lying still, with never a wave of the tail or flicker of fin.

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So he went on over the lawns and terraces and never a waking thing did he see, but when he came to the courtyard he saw a soldier standing there, leaning on his pike with his head bent upon his chest. At first the Prince thought that he was dead, but his cheek was fresh and ruddy and it was quite plain to see that he was merely asleep. In the courtyard itself were other human forms, all still and silent. A row of pikemen leaned against the wall and in front of them, stretched out upon the ground, snored the sergeant who had been drilling them when the spell came upon the castle. A young squire, with a sleeping hawk upon his wrist, slept leaning against a sleeping horse which he had been about to mount. Near by lay a page with a hound in leash, both sleeping as soundly as though they never would awake, and through a window in the stables the Prince saw a groom lying with a straw in his mouth.

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In the stables themselves a like condition of things prevailed. The horses slept at their stalls with their noses to the mangers, standing on their four legs just as they were when they were enchanted a hundred years before, and on the back of one of them sat the stable-cat. Here and there upon the ground lay grooms and ostlers, fast asleep among the straw.

From the stables the Prince made his way to the great kitchen where he saw equally strange sights, and he could not help smiling when he came upon the cook with her hand still outstretched to clout the head of the unhappy scullion whom she had by the ear. Before the fires hung the spitted partridges and fowls that were cooking for the Princess's birthday feast, and at the table a maid had fallen asleep with her hands in a large trough full of dough. She had been making the pastry for a pie when the sleep fell upon her, and by her side was another maid who had been plucking a black hen. At the sink a kitchen-knave was leaning over the pot he had been scouring.

Then the Prince went out into the great hall and saw the courtiers asleep in the window alcoves, or stretched out upon the polished floor.

Everywhere was a silence so profound that the Prince was almost alarmed to hear his own breathing, and the beating of his heart sounded like a m.u.f.fled drum. On and on he went, through rooms and corridors, up staircases and down staircases, into the Queen's chamber where he saw the Queen and her ladies as still and silent as the rest; one of those ladies had been reading to the Queen at the moment when the charmed sleep fell upon the castle, and the book, a History of Troy, still lay open on her lap. Then the Prince went into the King's room where his Majesty sat with his ministers of state round the Council board. He almost lingered there, for it was very curious to see those n.o.bles as quiet and motionless as though they had been waxworks in a show. Some of them were frowning as though in deep thought, and some smiling as though they had suddenly remembered something clever to say. The King himself, at the head of the Council table, had evidently fallen asleep in the very midst of a speech, for his arm lay outstretched on the table with pointing finger, and, by his side, his secretary's fingers still held the pen with which he was inscribing on a roll of parchment the royal words.

So the Prince hurried through the castle from top to bottom until he had glanced into every room and opened every door. And still he knew that there was something more to see, for nowhere had he come across the sleeping Princess. Many maidens he had seen of surpa.s.sing beauty, but his heart told him that none of them all was the maiden whom he had come to awaken.

Down he went into the courtyard again and found another stairway which led to the battlements. There stood the watchmen whose duty it was to look out over the country and report the arrival of travellers, but they, too, were all asleep, though one of them had his horn in his hand as though he had been about to blow it when he was suddenly overcome by the charmed slumber.

From the battlements the Prince climbed, in turn, into each of the turrets, but there was n.o.body in them at all, and no living thing except the owls asleep in the crevices of the walls, and the bats that hung head downward from the rafters. Now only one small turret remained to be explored. It was the oldest of the turrets, almost a ruin, and plainly long unused, for the iron door was rusty and the ivy trailed about the walls.

The Prince approached it with a beating heart, for there he knew he should find what he sought. He threw open the creaking door; with impatient feet he mounted the crazy, winding stair, opened the door at the top and entered a little dark room.

And then--and then he started forward with a cry of joy and wonder, for lying on the couch below the narrow window he saw the Princess.

She was lying upon a couch with her lovely hair spread out like a stream of gold; and, oh! no words can tell how beautiful she was. Softly the Prince came near and bent over her. He touched her hand; it was warm as in life, but she did not stir. No sound of breathing came from her parted lips, fresh and sweet as the petals of a rose; her eyes were closed.

For a long time the Prince stood and gazed upon her, for never in all his life had he seen a maiden so lovely. Then suddenly he bent down and kissed her lips.

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That was the end of the enchantment. The Princess's eyelids quivered; languidly she moved her head and stretched out her arms. Her eyes opened and she smiled.

"Is it you, my Prince?" she said. "How long you have kept me waiting!"

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CHAPTER XI

IN that very moment the charm was broken and the castle awoke.

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Instead of the profound silence there came a hustle and confusion of noise. Clocks began to strike, doors began to slam, dogs began to bark, c.o.c.ks began to crow and hens to cluck; a breeze sprang up outside and set the branches of the trees swaying and creaking; the doves began to coo upon the roofs, the swallows to twitter under the eaves, flies came out and buzzed about the window, mice squeaked in the wainscot and ran scampering along the rafters. The fountain in the garden leapt up sixty feet into the air, and the goldfish swam among the water-lily leaves; ants left their nests and foraged about the paths, the b.u.t.terflies danced and fluttered over the flowers, which lifted their heads as though to drink in the rays of the sun. In every tree in the garden a thrush woke up and began to sing; sparrows chirped, jays screamed, blue-t.i.ts chattered, and the chiff-chaff uttered his strange note. In the woods a cuckoo called and blackbird fluted to blackbird in the hedge. In the stables the horses awoke and champed at their stalls; the cat jumped down and ran after a mouse which crept out from under the straw. The sentry at the courtyard gate woke up and rubbed his eyes and came smartly to attention, looking round uneasily, for he thought he had only been asleep for a few minutes and was afraid that somebody might have seen him who would report him to the sergeant. The pikemen also woke with a start, and the sergeant woke too, and bellowed an order in a loud and angry voice, for he was ashamed of himself for sleeping in front of his men. The young squire who was going hawking fitted his falcon's hood and mounted his steed; the page-boy with the hound went off to his master. On the topmost tower of the castle the royal standard, which had been drooping against the flagstaff, filled out and waved freely in the breeze.

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The hedge which had grown up to surround the enchanted castle broke in and disappeared; peac.o.c.ks squalled and strutted on the lawns, martins flitted to and from their nests under the eaves, pigs began to grunt, oxen to low, sheep to bleat, rooks to caw and children to laugh and sing. In short, all the sounds which we hear every day and all the time and never notice, began again and seemed so loud in contrast to the deadly silence that they almost cracked the ears.

And in every room in the castle the people who had been lying asleep for a hundred years woke up and went on with what they had been doing just as though nothing had happened. In the kitchen the flames of the fire leapt up with a hiss and a roar. The kettle began to boil, the stew-pot to bubble, and the meat before the fire to steam and hiss as the little boy turned the spit.

"Take that," cried the cook, giving the scullion the clout she had promised a hundred years before. "Take that for a lazy knave."

"Goodness," yawned the maid who had been plucking the black hen; "I wonder what made me drop off to sleep like that? Well, well, it's to be hoped the cook didn't see me!" And my word, how she made the feathers fly!

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_Miaou!_ cried the cat in disgust as he made a pounce at the mouse-hole he had been watching, for the little mouse who had poked his nose out a hundred years before drew it back like a flash and scampered away.

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"Dear me!" said the servant who was was.h.i.+ng the dishes; "I do believe I have been to sleep with this crock in my hand. It's a mercy I didn't let it fall!" And he went on with his scouring. It was the same thing in the dairy where the maids had fallen asleep while they were skimming the cream and churning the b.u.t.ter. And the cream was not sour for all that a hundred years had pa.s.sed, nor was the b.u.t.ter rank. But a fly which had been sleeping on the edge of one of the milk-pans woke up and flew down to taste the milk, and fell in and was drowned, so he was none the better because the spell had been taken off the castle.

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In the Queen's ante-chamber the maids-of-honour and the ladies-in-waiting sat up and yawned and stretched themselves. Each one of them thought that she was the only one who had fallen asleep, and they all began to explain at the same time that they had only closed their eyes for forty seconds. "It was the heat," they all said to each other. "The sun is very hot for this time of year."

In the King's council chamber the King and all his ministers woke up with a start. The ministers rubbed their eyes and looked very sheepish, for each of them thought that he was alone in being caught napping.

"Your Majesty was saying . . . ?" said the Prime Minister respectfully, leaning forward.

"I was saying . . ." said the King. "What was I saying?" And he stretched out his arms and yawned. "I crave your pardon, my lords. I do believe I've been asleep. Heigho! but my joints are stiff."

"It was but an after-dinner nap," said the Prime Minister. "Your Majesty is overspent with the hard hunting yesterday. Is it your Majesty's will that we should proceed with our business, or shall the Council rise until to-morrow?"

"Go on, my lords, go on," cried the King heartily. "My little nap has wonderfully refreshed me. What say you, shall we pa.s.s that bill we were discussing a few minutes ago?"

But at this moment a page came into the room with a message from the Queen, and as soon as he received it the King left his seat in the council chamber and went to her.

Alone, among all the people in the castle, the Queen had realised immediately she awoke from her charmed sleep, exactly what had happened.

She remembered the words of the fairy G.o.dmother, and she knew that what she had foretold had come to pa.s.s, and that the sleep from which she and everybody else in the castle had just awakened had lasted a hundred years.

Her first thought was of her daughter, the Princess Briar-Rose. Where was she, and what had happened to her? If she, too, had merely fallen asleep, all was well, but suppose the doom first spoken by the thirteenth fairy had taken effect?

In a few words she told the King all that was in her mind, and without delay messengers were sent all over the castle to look for the Princess.

In the meantime Briar-Rose and the young Prince were talking together in the ruined tower. For the first time she heard the story of the enchantment, and her eyes grew round with wonder as she listened to her lover's account of the strange things that had happened in the castle.

When he told of the great hedge and its cruel thorns, and of the many young men who died in trying to force their way through it, her eyes filled with tears.

"How great their courage was," she sighed. "Oh, if only I could bring them back to life."

But the Prince kissed her tears away, and hastened past that part of his tale, and presently she was smiling again and happy, because she understood that everything had happened as it was bound to happen.