"My dear child," said I to my niece, "has it occurred to you that they have invited us out to an afternoon execution, and that they mean to chop our heads off?"
She admitted that they seemed to think they were, but begged me to give myself no uneasiness, promising to see that no harm came of our little pleasure-excursion. Young girls are so rash!—but my niece always takes me with her.
"But what is this absurdity about a prince?" I asked.
She said it was no absurdity at all. That she had come to marry the prince, and would marry the prince—if she liked his looks.
"Have n't you seen him?" I asked in some surprise.
She shook her head, and then assured me again that I need not be uneasy—that the whole journey was her own plan, and she felt sure of its ultimate success. It is not profitable to argue with a person who pays no attention to what you say, and who never on any account does anything you think it best to do, so I said no more.
Amid renewed jeers, we climbed the steps to the scaffold.
The headsman was waiting for us. His ax looked very large to me, but he seemed strong enough to handle it. The King was there, and was plainly in a hurry to get away, for he said with some attempt at pleasantry:
"Now, then, Headsman, here's the young lady who wishes to marry the prince. Off she goes,—and then for the old star-gazer!"
I thought his remarks were not in the best of taste. They put my niece's head upon the block, the headsman raised his ax, and the ax-head immediately flew off in the form of a black crow, saying, "Caw!"
The headsman looked after it with much interest.
"Never," said he with emphasis, "in the whole course of my professional experience, did I ever see anything like that."
