At first the King of the Peacocks was taken aback by this bold speech , and had half a mind to send them all away together ; but his Prime Minister declared that it would never do to let such a trick as that pass unpunished , everybody would laugh at him ; so the accusation was drawn up against them , that they were impostors , and that they had promised the King a beautiful Princess in marriage who , when she arrived , proved to be an ugly peasant girl . This accusation was read to the prisoners , who cried out that they had spoken the truth , that their sister was indeed a Princess more beautiful than the day , and that there was some mystery about all this which they could not fathom . Therefore they demanded seven days in which to prove their innocence , The King of the Peacocks was so angry that he would hardly even grant them this favour , but at last he was persuaded to do so . While all this was going on at court , let us see what had been happening to the real Princess . When the day broke she and Frisk were equally astonished at finding themselves alone upon the sea , with no boat and no one to help them . The Princess cried and cried , until even the fishes were sorry for her . ` Alas ! ' she said , ` the King of the Peacocks must have ordered me to be thrown into the sea because he had changed his mind and did not want to marry me . But how strange of him , when I should have loved him so much , and we should have been so happy together ! ' And then she cried harder than ever , for she could not help still loving him . So for two days they floated up and down the sea , wet and shivering with the cold , and so hungry that when the Princess saw some oysters she caught them , and she and Frisk both ate some , though they did n't like them at all . When night came the Princess was so frightened that she said to Frisk : ` Oh ! Do please keep on barking for fear the soles should come and eat us up ! ' Now it happened that they had floated close in to the shore , where a poor old man lived all alone in a little cottage . When he heard Frisk 's barking he thought to himself : ` There must have been a shipwreck ! ' -LRB- for no dogs ever passed that way by any chance -RRB- , and he went out to see if he could be of any use . He soon saw the Princess and Frisk floating up and down , and Rosette , stretching out her hands to him , cried : ` Oh ! Good old man , do save me , or I shall die of cold and hunger ! ' When he heard her cry out so piteously he was very sorry for her , and ran back into his house to fetch a long boat-hook . Then he waded into the water up to his chin , and after being nearly drowned once or twice he at last succeeded in getting hold of the Princess 's bed and dragging it on shore .
Rosette and Frisk were joyful enough XXXXX find themselves once more on dry land , and the Princess thanked the old man heartily ; then , wrapping herself up in her blankets , she daintily picked her way up to the cottage on her little bare feet .
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