“He thought nothing about it, was all ready for the marriage, and then one night something came into his head and he had an almost overpowering desire to see the woman, who was to be his wife, and the man who was to be his sister’s husband. Well, he went at night and crept up the side of a great wall to the window of a tower, and through the window saw the man and woman. How ugly they were—horrible! He shuddered. For a time he thought he would let go his hold on the stone face of the wall and be dashed to bits on the rocks beneath. He was ready to die with horror—didn’t care much. “And then he thought of his sister, the beautiful princess. Whatever happened she had to be saved from such a marriage. “And so home the prince went and confronted his father and there was a terrible scene, the father swearing the marriage would have to be consummated. The neighboring king was powerful and his kingdom was of vast extent and the marriage would make the son, born of the marriage, the most powerful king in the whole world. The prince and the king stood in the castle and looked at each other. Neither of them would give in an inch. “There was one thing of which the prince was sure—if he did not marry his sister would not have to. If he went away there would be a quarrel between the two old kings. He was sure of that. “First though he gave the king, his father, his chance. ‘I won’t do it,’ he declared and he stuck to his word. The king was furious. ‘I’ll disinherit you,’ he cried, and then he ordered his son to go out of his presence and not to come back until he had made up his mind to go ahead with the marriage. “What the king did not expect was that he would be taken at his word. For what the young man, the prince, did, you see, was to just walk out of the castle and right on out into the world. “Poor man, his hands were then as soft as a woman’s,” May explained. “You see in all his former life he had never even lifted his hand to do a thing. When he dressed he didn’t even button his own clothes. A prince never did. “And so the prince ran away and managed, after unbelievable hardships, to make his way to a seaport, where he got a place as sailor on a ship just leaving for foreign parts. The captain of the ship did not know, and the other sailors did not know that he was a king’s son, nor did they know that a great outcry was going up and horsemen riding madly over the whole country, trying to find the lost prince. “So he got away and was a sailor and in the castle his father was so furious he would not speak to anyone. He shut himself up in a room of the castle and just swore and swore.