Page:Specimens of German Romance (Volume 2).djvu/65

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Master Flea.
57

when the Leech-Prince sets about kissing a fair one, she is lost, for he is the vilest bloodsucker in the world. So it happened on this occasion: the Leech-Prince kissed the poor Gamaheh so long, that all life left her, when he fell back gorged and intoxicated upon the moss, and was forced to be carried home by his servants, who hastily rolled out of their marshes. In vain the root mandragora toiled out of the earth, and laid itself upon the wound inflicted by the treacherous kisses of the Leech-Prince; in vain all the other flowers arose and joined in his lamentations: she was dead. Just then it happened that the genius, Thetel, was passing and he too was deeply moved by Gamaheh's beauty and her unlucky end. He took her in his arms, pressed her to his breast, and endeavoured to breathe new life into her; but still she awoke not from the sleep of death. Now, too, the genius perceived the odious prince,—who was so drunk and unwieldly that his servants had not been able to get him into his palace,—fell into a violent rage, and threw a whole handful of rock-salt upon him, at which