Anne, do you see any one coming?”

Anne replied sadly, “I see nothing but the sun shining and the grass growing tall and green.”

Several times Fatima put the same question and each time she received the same answer.

Meanwhile Bluebeard was waiting with a scimitar in one hand and his watch in the other. At length he shouted in a fierce voice: “The ten minutes are almost gone! Make an end to your prayers!”

“Anne, Sister Anne!” Fatima called softly, “look again. Is there no one on the road?”

“I see a cloud of dust rising in the distance,” Anne answered.

“Perchance it is made by our brothers,” Fatima said.

“Alas! no, my dear sister,” Anne responded. “The dust has been raised by a flock of sheep.”

“Fatima!” Bluebeard roared, “I command you to come down.”

“One moment—just one moment more!” the wretched wife sobbed.

Then she called, “Anne, Sister Anne, do you see any one coming?”

“I see two horsemen riding in this direction,” Anne replied, “but they are a great way off.”

“They must be our brothers,” Fatima said. “Heaven be praised! Oh, sign to them to hasten!”

By this time the enraged Bluebeard was howling so loud for his wife to come down that his voice shook the whole mansion. Fatima dared delay no longer, and she descended to the great hall, threw herself at her wicked husband’s feet, and once more begged him to spare her life.

“Silence!” Bluebeard cried. “Your entreaties are wasted! You shall die!”

He seized her by the hair and raised his scimitar to strike. At that moment a loud knocking was heard at the gates, and Bluebeard paused with a look of alarm.

Anne had run down to let the brothers in, and they hurried to the hall, flung open the door, and appeared with swords ready drawn in their hands. They rushed at Bluebeard, and one rescued his sister from her husband’s grasp while the other gave the wretch a sword-thrust that put an end to his life.

So the wicked Bluebeard perished, and Fatima became mistress of all his riches. Part of her wealth she bestowed on her sister, Anne, and part on her two brothers. The rest she retained herself, and presently she married a man whose kind treatment helped her to forget her unfortunate experience with Bluebeard.

III—A GOBLIN IN A BOTTLE

Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter who worked from daylight to dark, and as he spent little he saved some money. He had an only son, and one day he said to him: “This money which I have earned by the sweat of my brow shall be spent on your education. Go to school and learn something useful that you may be able to support me in my old age when my limbs become so stiff that I am obliged to sit at home.”

The son went away to a great school and was very industrious and made excellent progress. He had been at the school a long time, but had not learned all that was to be learned when his father’s store of money was exhausted, and he was obliged to come home.

“I can give you no more,” his father said sadly, “for in these dear times I am scarcely able to earn my daily bread.”

“Make yourself easy as to that, my good father,” the son responded. “I will suit myself to the times.”

When the father was about to go to the forest to chop, the son said, “I will go with you and help.”

“Ah! but you have never been used to such hard work,” the father objected. “You must not attempt it. Besides, I have only one ax and no money to buy another.”

“Go and ask your neighbor to lend you an ax till I have earned enough to buy one for myself,” the son said.