Then the guards and Lucilla mounted the scaffold, and Lucilla began to fear that at last the windfairies had forsaken her, and she wept and held out her arms, and cried out, “Oh, dear windfairies, indeed I have kept my faith with you, surely, surely you will keep yours with me.” In spite of the terrible gale, the King and the Queen came down to the market-place, though they could scarce see or hear for the wind, though all the time the sun was shining and the sky was blue. Then the guards bid Lucilla kneel down and place her head upon the block, and the bag of gold was beside her, and they said, “This is your last chance, speak now and confess the truth to the King, and here is your gold, and you shall go.” And Lucilla answered as before, “I have spoken the truth, and there is no more that I can tell, since I have sworn never to say from whom I learnt my dancing.” Then the executioner lifted the axe in the air, but before it fell, there came a sudden roar of wind, and the axe was swept from his hand, and the houses in the market-place tottered and fell, and high up on the hill the palace was a mass of ruins. Only Lucilla knelt upon the scaffold unhurt, for the King and the Queen and all the people were blown right and left, amidst the ruins of the houses, and no one thought of anything save how they could save themselves. Then Lucilla lifted her head and looked out to sea, and saw the big ship coming in, and she heard the sailors cry, “Heyday, these poor folk are in a sad plight, we had better go and help them,” and they all trooped up into the market-place, and the wind troubled them no more than it had troubled their ship. But when Lucilla looked at them, the first whom she saw was her husband, and she gave a great cry, and held out her arms, and called out, “Now, dear windfairies, do I indeed know that you have kept faith with me, and saved me in my direst hour of need.” Then she told her husband all that had happened, and showed him the bag of gold, and prayed him take her back to her little cottage and her babies by the sea; and she knew that it was the windfairies that had brought her husband to her, for he told her that whatever way they steered the ship it would only take one course, and the wind had blown it without their guidance straight to the town where she was to be killed. So Lucilla and her husband took the bag of gold, and went back to the little cottage by the sea-shore, and her father and her babies, and the King and the Queen and all the rest of the people were left to build up their town as best they could, and Lucilla never saw nor heard of them any more, but lived happily with her husband for the rest of her life. [Illustration: VAIN KESTA] ONCE upon a time there lived a young girl called Kesta who was the dairy-maid at a large farm. She milked the cows and made the cheese and butter, and sometimes took them into the town to sell for her master.