Chapter 14

The horse kept leading her Southwards until she sensed that she had gone sufficiently far to escape the fierce cold of winter. She could now explore the region where she was to spend the next few months, rather than keep pressing further and further on each day. The Fairy's confident prediction that she would be offered work was proved all too correct, and even the by now work-hardened Princess was reduced to total exhaustion as day after day the harvest of olives was gathered, potatoes were dug and all manner of stores and barns were filled with the goodly fruits of the earth in preparation for the coming winter.

When the winter did come, with a deluge which chilled the poor girl to the bone, exposed as she was, she wondered whether she had not wasted her time by making this long and hazardous trip south. The Fairy's words about caves in which to shelter, came back to mind. Could she have been serious? A cave was shelter and she was denied shelter by day or night. Best not risk further retribution, was her decision. Better to shiver all night and all day until the Spring when her return home could begin, than suffer more chastisement.

The trees in this region lacked the exuberant foliage of her own beloved dense woods and forests. They afforded little shelter, specially now that they had shed their sparse and sere leaves. The constant drip of water onto her body all through the night became her familiar lot, except on occasions, when she summoned the two white dogs to shelter her and she pitied them too much to put them to so much trouble too often, poor creatures! No! She was on her own and that was that! By day she worked, although less and less work was to be done and by the beginning of the New Year, it had dried up altogether.

She began to fear for the horse. A friendly farmer had agreed to stable him, but the animal pined at nights for his mistress and she dearly missed him. Then she remembered the caves! He could spend the night in a cave, snug and dry, while she could continue to sleep in the open as she knew she must.

When she asked the farmer if he knew of a suitable cave where the horse might shelter, he told her of one he sometimes used in the summer for shelter, before the goats were brought down to their winter quarters. She was welcome to use it as long as she wished, and hay for the horse would be always available for the Princess to come and carry back for her beloved equine friend.

It was a long treck out of the lowland settlement to the hills and evening was almost on her before she reached the cave in question. She was about to tell her friend to go inside and make himself comfortable, when a wisp of smoke could be seen issuing from the cave mouth. Some moments later, an amazing creature came out to see who was coming up the mountainside.

It had a head like that of a lizard and a long scaly body terminating in an enormous and sinuous tail. The feet were also scaly like a bird's, and with claw like toes. With one of the front feet the creature was clasping a lighted cigar, on which, having come to a halt and resting back on his powerful hind legs, he puffed vigorously, exhaling dense clouds of aromatic smoke into the evening air.