Page:Tales of old Lusitania.djvu/36

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26
PORTUGUESE FAIRY TALES.

were provided for him, he sallied out of the haunted castle, and took the first road he came to, carrying with him the bags of gold. As he went along, if he saw any house or lands to let, he bought them and gave them to the poor.

He arrived at last in the land of the Moors, where he bought an estate, and settled down on it. He had not been long established there when the approaching marriage of the viceroy's daughter was announced. The princess suggested to her father that it would be as well to invite the foreign noble man who had settled among them, and he was accordingly invited as a guest to the breakfast which was to be given before the wedding ceremony.

At the banquet the guests petitioned the princess to do them the honour of carving for them. And as she graciously did so, our traveller noticed that she had his ring on her finger, the one he had missed when he first entered the enchanted castle. Wishing to attract her attention to her own ring which he wore, he tried every time he stretched out his hand for a plate, to let her see the finger that had it on.

The princess noticed the ring, and her heart bounded with joy to find the man she had so longed to meet, the man who had disenchanted her. She suddenly paused, and said, addressing her father: "My dear father, before we proceed any further, and the marriage ceremony takes place, I have a question