Then the good Jinn was satisfied, and fell fast
asleep.
Now during the years which followed, the young King remained
passionately in love with his beautiful bride, but the other women in
the palace were very jealous of her, especially after she gave birth
to the most lovely young Prince imaginable. They determined to
compass her ruin, and spent hours in thinking how they might kill her,
or lay a snare for her.
Every night they would come to the door of the Queen's room, and
whisper, to see if she was awake, 'The Princess Pepperina is awake,
but all the world is fast asleep.'
Now the emerald, which the young Queen still wore round her neck, was
a real talisman, and always told the truth; if any one even whispered
a story, it just up and out with the truth _at once_, and shamed
the culprit without remorse. So the emerald on these occasions would
answer, 'Not so! the Princess Pepperina is asleep. It is the world
that wakes.'
Then the wicked women would shrink away, for they knew they had no
power to harm the Princess while the talisman was round her neck.
At last it so happened that when the young Queen was bathing she took
off the emerald talisman, and left it by mistake in the
bathing-place. So that night, when the jealous women as usual came
whispering round the door, 'The Princess Pepperina is awake, but all
the world sleeps,' the truthful talisman called out from the
bathing-place, 'Not so! the Princess Pepperina sleeps.
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