` Ah , how rash you are ! ' cried the princess , throwing her arms round his neck . ` If you know that , how can you have that horrid beast about you ? I will give orders to have him killed at once . ' But the prince would not listen to her . ` Kill my dear little dog , who had been my playfellow since he was a puppy ? ' exclaimed he . ` Oh , never would I allow that . ' And all that the princess could get from him was that he would always wear a sword , and have somebody with him when he left the palace . When the prince and princess had been married a few months , the prince heard that his stepmother was dead , and his father was old and ill , and longing to have his eldest son by his side again . The young man could not remain deaf to such a message , and he took a tender farewell of his wife , and set out on his journey home . It was a long way , and he was forced to rest often on the road , and so it happened that , one night , when he was sleeping in a city on the banks of the great river , a huge crocodile came silently up and made its way along a passage to the prince 's room . Fortunately one of his guards woke up as it was trying to steal past them , and shut the crocodile up in a large hall , where a giant watched over it , never leaving the spot except during the night , when the crocodile slept . And this went on for more than a month . Now , when the prince found that he was not likely to leave his father 's kingdom again , he sent for his wife , and bade the messenger tell her that he would await her coming in the town on the banks of the great river . This was the reason why he delayed his journey so long , and narrowly escaped being eaten by the crocodile . During the weeks that followed the prince amused himself as best he could , though he counted the minutes to the arrival of the princess , and when she did come , he at once prepared to start for the court . That very night , however , while he was asleep , the princess noticed something strange in one of the corners of the room . It was a dark patch , and seemed , as she looked , to grow longer and longer , and to be moving slowly towards the cushions on which the prince was lying . She shrank in terror , but , slight as was the noise , the thing heard it , and raised its head to listen .
Then she saw it was the long flat head XXXXX a serpent , and the recollection of the prophecy rushed into her mind .
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