“‘Why, Ragotte,’ I said, for that was the fairy’s name, ’what is the meaning of all this?  Is it by your orders that I am here?’

“‘And whose fault is it,’ she answered, ’that you have never understood me until now?  Must a powerful fairy like myself condescend to explain her doings to you who are no better than an ant by comparison, though you think yourself a great king?’

“‘Call me what you like,’ I said impatiently; ’but what is it that you want—­my crown, or my cities, or my treasures?’

“‘Treasures!’ said the fairy, disdainfully.  ’If I chose I could make any one of my scullions richer and more powerful than you.  I do not want your treasures, but,’ she added softly, ’if you will give me your heart—­if you will marry me—­I will add twenty kingdoms to the one you have already; you shall have a hundred castles full of gold and five hundred full of silver, and, in short, anything you like to ask me for.’

“‘Madam Ragotte,’ said I, ’when one is at the bottom of a pit where one has fully expected to be roasted alive, it is impossible to think of asking such a charming person as you are to marry one!  I beg that you will set me at liberty, and then I shall hope to answer you fittingly.’

“‘Ah!’ said she, ’if you really loved me you would not care where you were—­a cave, a wood, a fox-hole, a desert, would please you equally well.  Do not think that you can deceive me; you fancy you are going to escape, but I assure you that you are going to stay here and the first thing I shall give you to do will be to keep my sheep—­they are very good company and speak quite as well as you do.

“As she spoke she advanced, and led me to this plain where we now stand, and showed me her flock, but I paid little attention to it or to her.

“To tell the truth, I was so lost in admiration of her beautiful slave that I forgot everything else, and the cruel Ragotte, perceiving this, turned upon her so furious and terrible a look that she fell lifeless to the ground.

“At this dreadful sight I drew my sword and rushed at Ragotte, and should certainly have cut off her head had she not by her magic arts chained me to the spot on which I stood; all my efforts to move were useless, and at last, when I threw myself down on the ground in despair, she said to me, with a scornful smile: 

“’I intend to make you feel my power.  It seems that you are a lion at present, I mean you to be a sheep.’

“So saying, she touched me with her wand, and I became what you see.  I did not lose the power of speech, or of feeling the misery of my present state.

“‘For five years,’ she said, ’you shall be a sheep, and lord of this pleasant land, while I, no longer able to see your face, which I loved so much, shall be better able to hate you as you deserve to be hated.’

“She disappeared as she finished speaking, and if I had not been too unhappy to care about anything I should have been glad that she was gone.