FullReads

“Nothing will suit us better,” exclaimed the jailer, “and the sooner we build a town wall so as to keep off the Potentate, if he should come this way, the better shall we be satisfied.”

The next morning, the Prince said to the red-bearded man: “Others have gathered around us. We have formed a nucleus, and thus have done all that we promised to do. We shall now depart.”

The man objected strongly to this, but the Prince paid no attention to his words. “What troubles me most,” he said to the Jolly-cum-pop, “is the disgraceful condition of our clothes. They have been so torn and soiled during our unaccustomed work that they are not fit to be seen.”

“As for that,” said the Jolly-cum-pop, “I have sixteen suits with me, in which you can all dress, if you like. They are of unusual patterns, but they are new and clean.”

“It is better,” said the Prince, “for persons in my station to appear inordinately gay than to be seen in rags and dirt. We will accept your clothes.”

Thereupon, the Prince and each of the others put on a prison dress of bright green and yellow, with large red spots. There were some garments left over, for each boy wore only a pair of trousers with the waistband tied around his neck, and holes cut for his arms; while the large jackets, with the sleeves tucked, made very good dresses for the girls. The Prince and his party, accompanied by the Jolly-cum-pop, now left the red-bearded man and his new settlers to continue the building of the city, and set off on their journey. The course-marker had not been informed the night before that they were to go away that morning, and consequently did not set his instrument by the stars.

“As we do not know in which way we should go,” said the Prince, “one way will be as good as another, and if we can find a road let us take it; it will be easier walking.”

In an hour or two they found a road and they took it. After journeying the greater part of the day, they reached the top of a low hill, over which the road ran, and saw before them a glittering sea and the spires and houses of a city.

“It is the city of Yan,” said the course-marker.

“That is true,” said the Prince; “and as we are so near, we may as well go there.”

The astonishment of the people of Yan, when this party, dressed in bright green and yellow, with red spots, passed through their streets, was so great that the Jolly-cum-pop roared with laughter. This set the boys and girls and all the people laughing, and the sounds of merriment became so uproarious that when they reached the palace the King came out to see what was the matter. What he thought when he saw his nephew in his fantastic guise, accompanied by a party apparently composed of sixteen other lunatics, cannot now be known; but, after hearing the Prince’s story, he took him into an inner apartment, and thus addressed him: “My dear Hassak: The next time you pay me a visit, I beg for your sake and my own, that you will come in the ordinary way. You have sufficiently shown to the world that, when a Prince desires to travel, it is often necessary for him to go out of his way on account of obstacles.”

“My dear uncle,” replied Hassak, “your words shall not be forgotten.”

After a pleasant visit of a few weeks, the Prince and his party (in new clothes) returned (by sea) to Itoby, whence the Jolly-cum-pop soon repaired to his home. There he found the miners and rock-splitters still at work at the tunnel, which had now penetrated half-way through the hill on which stood his house. “You may go home,” he said, “for the Prince has changed his plans. I will put a door to this tunnel, and it will make an excellent cellar in which to keep my wine and provisions.”

The day after the Prince’s return his map-maker said to him: “Your Highness, according to your commands I made, each day, a map of your progress to the city of Yan. Here it is.”

The Prince glanced at it and then he cast his eyes upon the floor. “Leave me,” he said. “I would be alone.”

[Illustration: THE MAP OF THE PRINCE’S JOURNEY FROM ITOBY TO YAN.]