`If you please, sire,' said the Princess, dropping a curtsey.

`I consent also,' said the Queen; `so let the banquet be prepared.'

This was done with all speed, and everybody feasted except
Mayblossom and Fanfaronade, who looked at one another and forgot
everything else.

After the banquet came a ball, and after that again a ballet, and
at last they were all so tired that everyone fell asleep just where
he sat. Only the lovers were as wide-awake as mice, and the
Princess, seeing that there was nothing to fear, said to Fanfaronade:

`Let us be quick and run away, for we shall never have a better
chance than this.'

Then she took the King's dagger, which was in a diamond
sheath, and the Queen's neck-handkerchief, and gave her hand to
Fanfaronade, who carried a lantern, and they ran out together into
the muddy street and down to the sea-shore. Here they got into
a little boat in which the poor old boatman was sleeping, and when
he woke up and saw the lovely Princess, with all her diamonds and
her spiders'--web scarf, he did not know what to think, and obeyed
her instantly when she commanded him to set out. They could see
neither moon nor stars, but in the Queen's neck-handkerchief there
was a carbuncle which glowed like fifty torches. Fanfaronade
asked the Princess where she would like to go, but she only
answered that she did not care where she went as long as he was
with her.