Part 54

When the poor beggar gathered wits enough to look about him he saw there a great chest standing wide open, and with holes in the lid. He wondered what it was for, but the king gave him no chance to ask; for, beckoning with his hand, the hangman and the others caught the beggar by arms and legs, thrust him into the chest, and banged down the lid upon him.

The king locked it and double-locked it, and set his seal upon it; and there was the beggar as tight as a fly in a bottle.

They carried the chest out and thrust it into a cart and hauled it away, until at last they came to the sea-shore. There they flung chest and all into the water, and it floated away like a cork. And that is how the king set about to ruin the poor beggar-man.

Well, the chest floated on and on for three days, and then at last it came to the shore of a country far away. There the waves caught it up, and flung it so hard upon the rocks of the sea-beach that the chest was burst open by the blow, and the beggar crawled out with eyes as big as saucers and face as white as dough. After he had sat for a while, and when his wits came back to him and he had gathered strength enough, he stood up and looked around to see where Fate had cast him; and far away on the hill-sides he saw the walls and the roofs and the towers of the great town, shining in the sunlight as white as snow.

“Well,” said he, “here is something to be thankful for, at least,” and so saying and shaking the stiffness out of his knees and elbows, he started off for the white walls and the red roofs in the distance.

At last he reached the great gate, and through it he could see the stony streets and multitudes of people coming and going.

But it was not for him to enter that gate. Out popped two soldiers with great battle-axes in their hands and looking as fierce as dragons. “Are you a stranger in this town?” said one in a great, gruff voice.

“Yes,” said the beggar, “I am.”

“And where are you going?”

“I am going into the town.”

“No, you are not.”

“Why not?”

“Because no stranger enters here. Yonder is the pathway. You must take that if you would enter the town.”

“Very well,” said the beggar, “I would just as lief go into the town that way as another.”

So off he marched without another word. On and on he went along the narrow pathway until at last he came to a little gate of polished brass. Over the gate were written these words, in great letters as red as blood:

“Who Enters here Shall Surely Die.”

Many and many a man besides the beggar had travelled that path and looked up at those letters, and when he had read them had turned and gone away again. But the beggar neither turned nor went away; because why, he could neither read nor write a word, and so the blood-red letters had no fear for him. Up he marched to the brazen gate, as boldly as though it had been a kitchen door, and rap! tap! tap! he knocked upon it. He waited awhile, but nobody came. Rap! tap! tap! he knocked again; and then, after a little while, for the third time--Rap! tap! tap! Then instantly the gate swung open and he entered. So soon as he had crossed the threshold it was banged to behind him again, just as the garden gate had been when the king had first sent for him. He found himself in a long, dark entry, and at the end of it another door, and over it the same words, written in blood-red letters:

“Beware! Beware! Who Enters here Shall Surely Die!”

“Well,” said the beggar, “this is the hardest town for a body to come into that I ever saw.” And then he opened the second door and passed through.

It was fit to deafen a body! Such a shout the beggar’s ears had never heard before; such a sight the beggar’s eyes had never beheld, for there, before him, was a great splendid hall of marble as white as snow. All along the hall stood scores of lords and ladies in silks and satins, and with jewels on their necks and arms fit to dazzle a body’s eyes. Right up the middle of the hall stretched a carpet of blue velvet, and at the farther end, on a throne of gold, sat a lady as beautiful as the sun and moon and all the stars.

“Welcome! welcome!” they all shouted, until the beggar was nearly deafened by the noise they all made, and the lady herself stood up and smiled upon him.

Then there came three young men, and led the beggar up the carpet of velvet to the throne of gold.

“Welcome, my hero!” said the beautiful lady; “and have you, then, come at last?”

“Yes,” said the beggar, “I have.”

“Long have I waited for you,” said the lady; “long have I waited for the hero who would dare without fear to come through the two gates of death to marry me and to rule as king over this country, and now at last you are here.”

“Yes,” said the beggar, “I am.”

Meanwhile, while all these things were happening, the king of that other country had painted out the words his father had written on the walls, and had had these words painted in in their stead:

“All Things are as Man does.”