The King, who had not lost a word of this conversation, sent for the sisters on the morrow and married all three.[FN#432] The eldest, as she had declared, made a carpet on which the whole army was seated, and yet there was room to spare.  The second, in her turn, made a tent under which all the army found shelter.  As to the youngest, after a time, she grew great, and her confinement approached.  The day she was delivered the King was absent, and on his return he inquired what she had given birth to.  The two elder sisters replied, “A little cat and a little mouse.”  On hearing this the King ordered the mother to be placed upon the staircase, and commanded every one who entered to spit upon her.

Now she had given birth to a boy and a girl, but her two sisters, after having shut them up in a box, sent them away by a servant to be exposed on the bank of the river, and a violent wind afterwards arising, the box was drifted to the other side.  There was a mill on that side, where dwelt an old man and his wife.  The old man having found the box brought it home.  They opened it, and discovered the boy and girl, with a star on their foreheads and a moon on their shoulders.  Astonished thereat, they took them out and brought the children up as well as they could.

Time passed away; the old woman died, and soon after came the turn of the old man.  Before dying he called the youth to him and said, “Know, my son, that in such a place is a cave where there is a bridle which belongs to me.  That bridle is thine, but avoid opening the cave before forty days have elapsed, if you wish the bridle to do whatever you command.”  The forty days having expired, the young man went to the cave, and on opening it found the bridle.  He took it in his hand and said to it, “I want two horses,” and in a moment two horses appeared.  The brother and sister mounted them, and in the twinkling of an eye they arrived in their father’s country.  There the young man opened a cafe, and his sister remained secluded at home.

As the cafe was the best in the country, the King came to hear of it, and when he entered it he saw the youth, who had a star on his forehead.  He thought him so beautiful [and lingered so long] that he returned late to the palace, when he was asked why he had tarried so late.  He replied, that a young lad had opened a cafe, and was so beautiful that he had never seen his equal; and, what was most extraordinary, there was a star on his brow.  The sisters no sooner heard these words of the King than they understood that he referred to their younger sister’s son.  Full of rage and spite, they quickly devised a plan of causing his death.  What did they do?  They sent to his sister an old woman, who said to her, “Thy brother, O my daughter, can hardly love thee, for he is all day at the cafe and has a good time of it, while he leaves thee here alone.  If he truly loves thee, tell him to bring thee a flower from the Belle of the Earth, so that