With the first streaks of daylight they came flying, as the saint had predicted, and, having flung off their covering of white feathers, each sought out a snug place under the heather where to deposit them. It required close watching, indeed, to make out which was his maiden; but, as they all chatted together, after the manner of maidens, Eligio knew he could trust himself to recognize her voice, and, guided by that, he kept his eyes hard fixed on her whose tones he recognized, that he might be sure to distinguish where she laid by her disguise. It was not light enough to satisfy himself whether her features corresponded with the idea he had built up in his own mind; but the grace of her form, as she passed by in her simple white, loosely-flowing dress, with a chaplet of roses for her only ornament; only made him the more anxious to behold her face.
The maidens walked away, and Eligio took possession of the feathery covering, which he laid up in his bosom as a precious token, and took it out again and gazed at it, and kissed it, and laid it by again a thousand times, for it was his only solace through the long day of waiting.
At last evening came, and he resumed his post of observation. The maidens returned; each sought out and resumed her dove’s feathers and flew away; only the one was left, seeking hers in vain. Then Eligio came forward, and said, respectfully, “Fair lady, I know what it is you seek, and I will help you to find it; but first promise to do me a great favour.”
The maiden started, for she too recognized his voice. Their eyes met, and both owned, in the depth of their own hearts, that the other bore the very image which for a year past their fancy had conjured up.
“That will I, willingly, good sir!” she replied, in her sweetest tones; “for, an’ I mistake not, I owe you a debt of gratitude before to-day. The treacherous cat that you killed so opportunely was no cat, but a cruel Angana95; and the white rat concerned me so nearly, because it was no rat, but my dear nurse, whom the magician turned into a rat when he stole me from my father’s house. So believe if I was not anxious to save her, and if I ought not to be grateful to him who preserved her to me! so tell me, what can I do to help you, and, whatever it may be, I will do it to the utmost of my power.”
“St. Anthony appeared to me as I came along this way,” rejoined Eligio, “and he told me that you had been stolen from Christian parents and brought up by this heathen mage, and that you would help me to get out of his power; but he also seemed to say that I should have the happiness of helping you to leave this dreadful abode, and restoring you to Christendom.”
“Said he so?” answered the maiden, with intense earnestness; “then my heart did not deceive me when I first heard your voice: you are indeed he with the thread of whose life mine is woven, and without whom I could not be set free.”
When Eligio heard that, he was full of gladness, and he said, “Let us escape, then! What should prevent us from leaving this country together? When I saw the magician before, the laws of hospitality made him sacred to my sword; but now – now that I have learnt I have a right to defend your life – I defy him, and all his arts!”
“You are brave, I see; and it is well,” she replied; “but it is not so you can discard his power. By your own error you gave him power over you, and now you are his; you can only be free by his will.”
“By his will!” cried Eligio, in despair; “then shall I never be free!”
“Art must be met by art,” she continued. “His art is all round you, though you see not its meshes; and by art we must bring him to renounce his claim on you. Trust me, and I will show you how it is to be done. He would force me to learn his arts when I begged him not, and now I know many things which will serve us. I can see the threads of his toils woven all around you; you cannot escape from them till he speaks you free.”
“Tell me, then, what I must do,” said Eligio; and he mentally resolved as he spoke, that he would this time implicitly obey what she told him.
She remained thinking for a time, as if reckoning out a problem. Then she said, “For this first time I must act. On the fatal day you must present yourself according to your oath. I will take care to be with him when they tell him you are come; and when I hear your name, I will plead, as I did before, that he should not sacrifice you at once, but give you some hard trial in which, if you succeed, he shall speak you free. To silence my importunity, he will agree to this, intending to give you so hard a trial that you should not succeed. But you come to me in my bower, cooing three times like a dove, for a signal, at this same evening hour, and tell me what it is, and I will find the means in my books to carry you through the trial. So that, whatever he proposes to you, be not disconcerted, but accept and undertake it with a good heart. And now, give me my dove’s feathers quickly, for already they will be questioning why I am so long behind.” And without waiting to let him take so much as another gaze at her, she assumed her dove shape, and flew away.
The next day Eligio went, with a lighter heart than he had borne for a long time past, to give himself up to the magician. The magician, won over by the maiden’s importunity, offered him his liberty on condition of his performing successfully the difficult feat that he should impose on him.
“Any thing you please to impose on me, I am ready to perform,” replied Eligio.
The magician smiled, with a ghastly, sardonic smile, while he paused, and tried to think of the most terrible trial he could impose.
“Since you were here last,” he said, at length, “I have grown a little deaf, and I am told that the only cure there is for me is the singing of the phœnix-bird. The first thing you have to do is to find me the phœnix-bird, that its singing may heal me.”
“I will do my best; and hope I may be the means of curing your malady,” said Eligio, courteously; but the magician, seeing him of such good courage, began to fear he really might succeed, and added, hastily, “But, mind, I only allow you three days for your search!”
“Three days are but little to find the phœnix-bird,” replied Eligio; “nevertheless, I will do my best;” and without waiting to listen to any further restrictions, he started on his way, saying, “If I have only three days, I have no time to lose.”
At the approach of the evening hour Eligio found his way to his maiden’s bower, and having attracted her attention by cooing three times like a dove, told her what was the trial the magician had imposed.
“The phœnix-bird!” she said, and she looked rather blank; “he has chosen a difficult task indeed. But wait a bit; I think I can find it out;” and she went back and took down scroll after scroll, and turned them over so long, that Eligio began to fear that she would not be able to help him after all. At last she came back to him, looking grave.
“It is more difficult even than I thought,” she said; “and three days is but short time to do it in. You must start this night, without losing a minute. Set out by the stony path outside the town, and ride ahead till you come to a forest, where a bear will come out upon you. The moment you see him, spring from your horse, and cut its throat with your hunting-knife; but if you hesitate a moment he will fall upon you, and devour you. If, however, you kill your horse dexterously, as you will, the bear will be satisfied with its flesh. You must wait standing by till he has eaten his fill, and watch for the moment when he is about to turn away again, then spring on his back, and he will take you to the castle where the phœnix-bird is kept; but if you lose that particular moment, he will return to his cave, and you will never have a chance of reaching the phœnix-bird!”
“Rely on me; your directions shall be punctually obeyed,” said Eligio, and he stooped to kiss her hand. But she would not allow this, and told him he had not an instant to spare.
Eligio mounted his horse, and rode away over the stony path outside the city, and pursued it all night, till at daybreak he reached the thick forest, when a bear came out upon him; Eligio sprang deftly from his horse, and plunging his hunting-knife into his throat, flung the carcase across the path. The bear fell upon the dead horse, and Eligio watched for the moment when he should have finished his repast; but, as he was long about it, he thought to himself, “Why not jump upon him at once? and then I shall be ready to start with him when he has done, without so much anxiety about catching the right instant.” So said, so done; but the bear was not at all the docile animal he had expected.
“Don’t disturb me when I’m feeding!” he growled, and shook our hero off into a bed of nettles.
Eligio owned to himself he would have done better to follow the directions of those wiser than he, and waited, with as much patience as the stinging of the nettles would allow him, till the brute was ready to start, and then made a bold leap on to his back, which made him turn round.
“Well sprung, this time!” growled the bear; “and as you have managed that part of the business so well I have no objection to do what you require. But you must attend to what I have to tell you. Keep your seat steadily, for I have to go swiftly; but speak not a word, and when I bring you to the palace where the phœnix-bird is kept, look not to the right hand or the left, but walk straight before you, through terrace, and galleries, and corridors, till you come to a dismal, deserted-looking aviary, where the phœnix-bird evermore sits on his perch. Put this hood over him, and bring him away with you; but listen not to the songs of the other birds all around, and, above all, touch not the golden owl which sits in the shade above!”
Eligio promised to attend to all the bear told him, and took a firm seat on his back. The bear bounded away with an awkward gait, but Eligio was an accomplished cavalier, and was nothing daunted. After many hours’ rough riding, they came to a vast palace, which he understood by the bear’s halting was the abode of the phœnix-bird; so he dismounted, and walked straight along the terraces, and galleries, and corridors, till he came to a sorry aviary where a thousand birds of gay plumage fluttered and chirped around. Faithful to his promise, Eligio stopped to look at none of them; but walked straight up to the perch of the phœnix-bird. When, however, he saw him, he began to reason in place of obeying. “What can be the use of taking a shabby old bird like that? he looks like a fowl plucked ready for cooking! surely, some of these gay-plumaged birds are better worth taking!” and then his eye caught the golden owl snugly ensconced in the shady bower above. “Ah! that’s a bird worth having, that is now! that’s worth coming a perilous journey for; something to be proud of when you’ve got it! That’s the bird for me!” and, springing upon a ledge of rock, he threw the hood the bear had given him over the head of the golden owl, and brought it down. He had scarcely touched the golden owl, however, when the whole assemblage of other birds, which had taken no notice of him before, suddenly began screeching forth their highest notes. Their cries brought a crowd of servants, who surrounded him and held him fast, while the lord of the palace came down, and severely asked an account of his conduct.
Eligio told his story with a frankness which, in some measure, conciliated the old lord; but the offence was too great to be passed over. “The phœnix-bird,” he said, “might have been taken by him who had courage to take it after the prescribed manner; but the other birds it was sacrilege to meddle with, and the golden owl he had been expressly forbidden, of all others, to touch; and though he granted him his life, he condemned him to perpetual durance.” The servants dragged him off to a deep dungeon, where he had nothing to do but to bewail his folly.
Night fell around, and nothing could be more hopeless than his position. His cell was hewn out of the earth; the iron door through which he had been thrust had been made fast with bolts and chains, and the only window which admitted the free air was strongly fitted with iron bars.
Eligio was generous enough, in his utter desolation, to grieve more over his unfulfilled mission and wasted opportunities, than over his personal hardships. “Oh, my beautiful Dove-Maiden!” he exclaimed, “shall I, then, never see you again? Must you be left for aye to the power of the horrid pagan enchanter, because I, by my insensate folly, have failed in restoring you to the brightness of the Christian faith?” and when he thought of her fate, he wept again.
“St Anthony! St. Anthony!” he cried, a little after, “you befriended me once; give me one chance again! This once but send me forth again with the mission of liberating her, and then let me come back and pass my life in penance; but let not her suffer through my fault!”
By a mechanical instinct he had placed himself near the window, as the type of freedom to him, and now he thought he heard a low grunt on the other side of it, close to his ear. The sound was not melodious, but yet he fancied there was something friendly in its tone. He raised himself up, and saw two white boar’s tusks between the bars. His solitude was so utter that even the visit of a wild boar was a solace of companionship; but much greater was his pleasure when he found that his uncouth visitor was grubbing up the earth round the iron bars and the stones which held them, and had already loosened one.
“How now, good boar!” cried Eligio; “are you really come to release me?”
“Yes,” said the boar, as he paused for a moment to take breath; “St. Anthony has heard you, and has sent me to give the fresh chance you ask for; and if you this time but keep your promise, and do as you are bid, he will not exact the performance of the lifelong penance you offer to perform; but after you have released the Dove-Maiden, you shall live with her the rest of your life in holy union and companionship.”
In a transport of delight Eligio set to work to co-operate with the boar in unearthing the massive stanchions; and when they had loosened three he was able to force himself through the narrow opening.
“Now return to the aviary,” said the boar; “look neither to right nor left, but bring away the phœnix-bird; and speak not a word, but mount on my back, and I will carry you back to the city. But make all haste, or the three days will have expired, and then all will be lost!”
This time Eligio followed his instructions implicitly, and got back to the town just in time to present the magician with the phœnix-bird before the expiring of his three days’ grace. The magician was surprised indeed to find he had been successful, but could not recall his word, so he was forced to pronounce him free; and Eligio immediately repaired to the Dove-Maiden to thank her for her succour, and to ask what was next to be done to set her free too, that they might go away together to Christian lands, and live for each other in holy union.
“As for me,” replied the maiden, blushing, “I shall be free by virtue of your freedom when you have performed one trial well, and without altering according to your own ideas the directions prescribed for you. And now the first thing is, to obtain the release of my dear nurse from the horrid form in which the magician has disguised her. To keep her in that shape, she is forced to eat a live mouse every week; and as nothing else is given her that she can eat, and as she is very ravenous by the time the week comes round, she is forced to eat the mouse. But if the mouse be killed by a sword consecrated to Christian chivalry, and it is dead before she eats it, the spell will be broken, and she will resume her natural form.”
Eligio said this was an easy matter. She had only to tell him on what day the feeding took place, and where.
“It has its difficulties, too,” replied the Dove-Maiden; “for if any blood of the mouse be spilt, the magician will know that I have instructed you, and he will play us some bad turn. To prevent this, you must cut the mouse in two by drawing your sword towards you; then all the blood will be caught on the sword, and you must make the rat lick it off afterwards.” Then she showed him where the mouse was brought, and told him to be on the watch at sunset that very night.
Sunset accordingly found Eligio in close watch, his sword ready in his hand. But he thought, “As for how to use a sword, my pretty Dove-Maiden knows nothing about that. Who ever heard of drawing a sword towards one? Why, if any one saw me they would laugh, and say, ‘Take care of your legs!’ I know how to cut a mouse in two so quickly that no blood shall be spilt; and that’s all that matters.” So, you see, he would do it his own way; and the consequence was that three drops of blood were spilt on the ground However, the white rat got a dead mouse to eat instead of a live one, and immediately appeared in her proper woman’s form.
When Eligio went to visit the Dove-Maiden after this, she spoke no word of reproach, but she told him she knew some trouble would befall them in consequence of those three drops of blood. She could not tell what it would be: they must do their best to provide against it when the time came. The next thing he had to do was, to go by midnight to the magician’s stables under the rock, and take out thence the swiftest horse in the whole world, and he was to know it by the token that it was the thinnest horse he ever saw; its eyeballs and its ribs were all that could be seen of it; and its tail was only one hair! This he was to saddle and bring under her window; and then all three would ride away on it together.
Eligio went down into the magician’s stable under the rock by midnight, and there he saw the lean horse, with his protruding ribs and eyeballs, and whose tail was only one hair. But he said to himself, “My pretty Dove-Maiden hasn’t much experience in horseflesh; that can’t be the swiftest horse in the world. Why, it would sink to the ground with our weight alone, let alone trying to move under us! That high-couraged chestnut there, with the powerful shoulders —that is the horse to hold out against fatigue, and put miles of distance behind you! I think I know a good horse to go when I see one!” So he saddled the high-couraged chestnut, and led it under the Dove-Maiden’s window.
When she saw the stout chestnut instead of the lean horse, she could not suppress a cry of disappointment.
“What have you done?” she said. “You have left the swiftest horse in the world behind; and now the magician can overtake us, nor can we escape him!”
Eligio hung his head, and stammered out a proposal to go and change the horse. But she told him it was too late; the stable-door was only open at midnight. He could not now get in till the next night; and if they left their escape till then, the magician would find out the disenchantment of the white rat, and from that suspect their scheme; and would then surround them with such a maze of difficulties, that it would take her years to learn how to solve them; whereas she had promised St. Anthony to have nothing more to do with the books of magic, but to burn them all, and go and live with a Christian husband, far from all these things. There was nothing to be done, therefore, but to start at once with their best speed, only keeping on the watch for the pursuer, who would inevitably come.
Away went the high-couraged chestnut, with the speed of the wind, and as if his threefold burden had been light as air. But how swiftly soever he went, the lean horse was swifter; and before the end of the second day’s journey they saw, at no distance, his fire-darting eyeballs and smoking ribs, and his tail of one hair stretched out far behind.
When the Dove-Maiden saw the magician coming after them on this weird mount, she called to her companions to jump down; and she turned the horse into a wayside chapel of St. Anthony, and herself into a peasant girl weaving chaplets on the grass outside.
“Have you seen a chestnut steed pass this way, with a young man and maiden, pretty child?” said the magician, bending low over his horse’s neck to pat the peasant girl’s cheek, but without recognizing her. The Dove-Maiden started aside from his touch; but she answered, —
“Yes, good sir; they are gone into the chapel; and if you will go in, there you will find them.”
“Oh! I’ve got into the land of the Christians, have I?” said the magician to himself. “I think I had better make the best of my way home, and not trust myself there.” So he mounted his fiery steed, and rode away.
Then the Dove-Maiden restored herself and her companions to their former shapes, and they soon reached home, where Eligio was received with joyful acclamations by all. But to his intense surprise and disappointment, his mother did not welcome his beautiful Dove-Maiden with any thing like satisfaction.
“That is because of the three drops of the mouse’s blood incautiously spilt,” she whispered, when he deplored it to her; “but I have a spell against that also. Let me into your mother’s room when she is asleep, to-night, and I will anoint her eyes with an ointment with shall make her look on me for ever after with a loving glance. It was done as she said, and next morning Eligio’s mother received her lovingly to her arms as a daughter.
After this, the Dove-Maiden burnt her magic books, and her nuptials with Eligio were celebrated with great rejoicings throughout the valley. They lived together for the rest of their days, in holy union, and the poor Christians of the whole countryside blessed their charity.