Twilight Land by Howard Pyle (black authors fiction txt) 📕

The Tailor stared and goggled and gaped to see so much smoke come out of such a little bottle, and, as he goggled and stared, the smoke began to gather together again, thicker and thicker, and darker and darker, until it was as black as ink. Then out from it there stepped one with eyes that shone like sparks of fire, and who had a countenance so terrible that the Tailor’s skin quivered and shrivelled, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth at the sight of it.

“Who are thou?” said the terrible being, in a voice that made the very marrow of the poor Tailor’s bones turn soft from terror.

“If you please, sir,” said he, “I am only a little tailor.”

The evil being lifted up both hands and eyes. “How wonderful,” he cried, “that one little tailor can undo in a moment that which took the wise Solomon a whole day to accomplish, and in the doing of which he wellnigh broke the sinews of his heart!” Then, turning to the Tailor, who stood trembling like a rabbit, “Hark thee!” said he. “For two thousand years I lay there in that bottle, and no one came nigh to aid me. Thou hast liberated me, and thou shalt not go unrewarded. Every morning at the seventh hour I will come to thee, and I will perform for thee whatever task thou mayst command me. But there is one condition attached to the agreement, and woe be to thee if that condition is broken. If any morning I should come to thee, and thou hast no task for me to do, I shall wring thy neck as thou mightest wring the neck of a sparrow.” Thereupon he was gone in an instant, leaving the little Tailor half dead with terror.

Now it happened that the prime-minister of that country had left an order with the Tailor for a suit of clothes, so the next morning, when the Demon came, the little man set him to work on the bench, with his legs tucked up like a journey-man tailor. “I want,” said he, “such and such a suit of clothes.”

“You shall have them,” said the Demon; and thereupon he began snipping in the air, and cutting most wonderful patterns of silks and satins out of nothing at all, and the little Tailor sat and gaped and stared. Then the Demon began to drive the needle like a spark of fire—the like was never seen in all the seven kingdoms, for the clothes seemed to make themselves.

At last, at the end of a little while, the Demon stood up and brushed his hands. “They are done,” said he, and thereupon he instantly vanished. But the Tailor cared little for that, for upon the bench there lay such a suit of clothes of silk and satin stuff, sewed with threads of gold and silver and set with jewels, as the eyes of man never saw before; and the Tailor packed them up and marched off with them himself to the prime-minister.

The prime-minister wore the clothes to court that very day, and before evening they were the talk of the town. All the world ran to the Tailor and ordered clothes of him, and his fortune was made. Every day the Demon created new suits of clothes out of nothing at all, so that the Tailor grew as rich as a Jew, and held his head up in the world.

As time went along he laid heavier and heavier tasks upon the Demon’s back, and demanded of him more and more; but all the while the Demon kept his own counsel, and said never a word.

One morning, as the Tailor sat in his shop window taking the world easy—for he had little or nothing to do now—he heard a great hubbub in the street below, and when he looked down he saw that it was the king’s daughter passing by. It was the first time that the Tailor had seen her, and when he saw her his heart stood still within him, and then began fluttering like a little bird, for one so beautiful was not to be met with in the four corners of the world. Then she was gone.

All that day the little Tailor could do nothing but sit and think of the princess, and the next morning when the Demon came he was thinking of her still.

“What hast thou for me to do to-day?” said the Demon, as he always said of a morning.

The little Tailor was waiting for the question.

“I would like you,” said he, “to send to the king’s palace, and to ask him to let me have his daughter for my wife.”

“Thou shalt have thy desire,” said the Demon. Thereupon he smote his hands together like a clap of thunder, and instantly the walls of the room clove asunder, and there came out four-and-twenty handsome youths, clad in cloth of gold and silver. After these four-and-twenty there came another one who was the chief of them all, and before whom, splendid as they were, the four-and-twenty paled like stars in daylight. “Go to the king’s palace,” said the Demon to that one, “and deliver this message: The Tailor of Tailors, the Master of Masters, and One Greater than a King asks for his daughter to wife.”

“To hear is to obey,” said the other, and bowed his forehead to the earth.

Never was there such a hubbub in the town as when those five-and-twenty, in their clothes of silver and gold, rode through the streets to the king’s palace. As they came near, the gates of the palace flew open before them, and the king himself came out to meet them. The leader of the five-and-twenty leaped from his horse, and, kissing the ground before the king, delivered his message: “The Tailor of Tailors, the Master of Masters, and One Greater than a King asks for thy daughter to wife.”

When the king heard what the messenger said, he thought and pondered a long time. At last he said, “If he who sent you is the Master of Masters, and greater than a king, let him send me an asking gift such as no king could send.”

“It shall be as you desire,” said the messenger, and thereupon the five-and-twenty rode away as they had come, followed by crowds of people.

The next morning when the Demon came the tailor was ready and waiting for him. “What hast thou for me to do to-day?” said the Evil One.

“I want,” said the tailor, “a gift to send to the king such as no other king could send him.”

“Thou shalt have thy desire,” said the Demon. Thereupon he smote his hands together, and summoned, not five-and-twenty young men, but fifty youths, all clad in clothes more splendid than the others.

All of the fifty sat upon coal-black horses, with saddles of silver and housings of silk and velvet embroidered with gold. In the midst of all the five-and-seventy there rode a youth in cloth of silver embroidered in pearls. In his hand he bore something wrapped in a white napkin, and that was the present for the king such as no other king could give. So said the Demon: “Take it to the royal palace, and tell his majesty that it is from the Tailor of Tailors, the Master of Masters, and One Greater than a King.”

“To hear is to obey,” said the young man, and then they all rode away.

When they came to the palace the gates flew open before them, and the king