At last the King regained his powers of speech. "If you don’t marry me this very day," he said, "I’ll have you beheaded, I’ll have you hanged, I’ll have you thrown from the top of the highest tower in the town and smash you to pieces." "You couldn’t do anything of the sort," the Queen said calmly. Thereupon the King’s rage became quite frightful to see, especially for the courtiers who were nearest him, for he rushed among them and began to kick them so that they flew into the air; indeed, it seemed as if the air was full of them. But, in the middle of it, he suddenly made a dash at the Queen, and, before she could avoid him, had seized her in his fearful grasp. "I’ll show you if I can’t dash you to pieces," he said, and in a minute he had seized her and rushed out into the open air, carrying her like a kitten. Up to the little door at the foot of the palace tower he went and kicked it open so violently that it banged against the wall and quivered again with the shock, and then round and round and round, and up and up and up, a little dark winding stair, until a sudden burst of light showed that they were at the top. "Now I’ll show you," he muttered, and, shaking her violently he threw her over the side. But she only dropped softly a short way, and then hovered up again till she played in the air around the tower. The astonishment of the King was now even greater than his former rage. "I told you how it would be," the Queen said. "And, if you’ll take my advice, you won’t lose your temper so fearfully again. It might really make you ill." But the King said nothing at all, being a little out of breath at having come so quickly up the tower steps. So the Queen flew gaily off again without saying "Good-bye." But down at the base of the tower the courtiers, discovering that the King was nicely trapped, quietly shut the door and locked it. Then they gave a sigh of relief, and left him till he died. They had been long looking out for such an opportunity. The Queen, however, knew nothing of that. She flew on for a time, being far too excited to remember her hunger; but at last it came back to her with redoubled force, and she determined to descend at the first house she came to and try to get some food somehow. But, by that time, the country had become sandy and dry, with only a few reeds bristling out over it here and there, and no signs of cultivation or even of houses. "_Now_, whatever shall I do?" she said to herself, as she flew along so dose to the ground that the wind of her flight made the sand flit about in little clouds. "I’m so awfully hungry and—— Why, there is some sort of a building!—at least it looks like one." And there, in a hollow among the sand-dunes, stood a funny little black erection, such as you might see upon a beach.