How Molo Stole the Lovely Rose-Red

When they parted she whispered to him: “Do not forget me!”

When the young man reached home his thoughts were all in confusion. And he sat down absent-mindedly like a wooden rooster. Now it happened that he had an old servant named Molo, who was an extraordinary being.

“What is the trouble, master,” said he. “Why are you so sad? Do you not want to tell your old slave about it?”

So the boy told him what had occurred, and also mentioned the signs the girl had made to him in secret.

Said Molo: “When she stretched out three fingers, it meant that she is quartered in the third court of the palace. When she turned round her hand three times, it meant the sum of three times five fingers, which is fifteen. When she pointed at the little mirror, she meant to say that on the fifteenth, when the moon is round as a mirror, at midnight, you are to go for her.”

Then the young man was roused from his confused thoughts, and was so happy he could hardly control himself.

But soon he grew sad again and said: “The prince’s palace is shut off as though by an ocean. How would it be possible to win into it?”

“Nothing easier,” said Molo. “On the fifteenth we will take two pieces of dark silk and wrap ourselves up in them, and thus I will carry you there. Yet there is a wild dog on guard at the slave girl’s court, who is strong as a tiger and watchful as a god. No one can pass by him, so he must be killed.”

When the appointed day had come, the servant said: “There is no one else in the world who can kill this dog but myself!”

Full of joy the youth gave him meat and wine, and the old man took a chain-hammer and disappeared with it.

And after no more time had elapsed than it takes to eat a meal he was back again and said: “The dog is dead, and there is nothing further to hinder us!”

At midnight they wrapped themselves in dark silk, and the old man carried the youth over the tenfold walls which surrounded the palace. They reached the third gateway and the gate stood ajar. Then they saw the glow of a little lamp, and heard Rose-Red sigh deeply.