So glad was the king at his son’s return that he released the Hindu.

Now the Hindu, hearing what had happened, determined on revenge.  He found where the horse was placed, and going to the palace where the foreign princess was housed, sent for her in the sultan’s name, and she came to him.  Then he seated her upon the horse, and mounting up in full view of the sultan and his royal son, flew far away with his lovely captive.

It was the Hindu’s desire to marry this princess, but when they were come to earth, she withstood him, and cried for help and succour.  To her came the sultan of that place, and slew the Hindu, and would have married her, but she was faithful to her lover and feigned madness.

Then the sultan offered rewards to any who should cure her of this frightful madness, and many physicians came and failed.  Now, her lover, distracted at sight of seeing her in mid-air with the Hindu, had turned Holy Man, roaming the earth without hope like one who is doomed.

It happened that he came to the palace where the princess lay in her feigned madness, and hearing the tale of her, and of the enchanted horse, with new hope and a great joy in his heart, he went in, disguised as a physician, and in secret made himself known.

Then he stood before the sultan of that land, and said:  “From the enchanted horse hath she contracted this madness, and by the enchanted horse shall she lose it.”  And he gave orders to dress her in glorious array, to crown her with jewels and gold, and to lead her forth to the palace square.

A vast concourse assembled there, and the prince set his beloved lady on the horse, and pretending incantations, leapt suddenly upon its back, turned the peg, and as the enchanted steed flew towards Persia, over his shoulder cried the glad prince:  “When next, O sultan, thou wouldst marry a princess who implores thy protection, ask first for her consent.”

* * * * *

AUCASSIN AND NICOLETTE

Song-Story of the Twelfth Century

If “Old Antif” of Hainault was, as the best authorities now incline to think, the author of “Aucassin and Nicolette,” Belgium may claim to have produced the finest poet of the ages of chivalry.  He was probably a contemporary of the English minstrel king, Richard the Lion-hearted.  But nothing is known of him save what can be gathered from the exquisite story of love which he composed in his old age.  Perhaps he, too, was, in his younger days, a Crusader as well as a minstrel, and fought in the Holy Land against the Saracens.  His “song-story” is certainly Arabian both in form and substance.  Even his hero, Aucassin, the young Christian lord of Beaucaire, bears an Arabian name—­Alcazin.  There is nothing in Mohammedan literature equal to “Aucassin and Nicolette.”  It can be compared only with Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”  The old, sorrowful, tender-hearted minstrel knight, who wandered from castle to castle in Hainault and Picardy seven hundred years ago, is one of the master-singers of the world.

I.—­Lovers Young and Fair