“Who are you, O fairest one?” he asked rapturously. “Who is your illustrious father and what is your honored name?” But she gazed about her in a puzzled way and shook her head.
The Prince frowned at her strange reply, for he could scarcely believe his ears, and he even pinched himself under his silken tunic to be sure he was not dreaming. But she was so pretty he could not be angry with her, and as he looked into her soft brown eyes his frown changed into a smile, and he said in a very gentle voice:
“Are you lost? Are there other hunters here who have brought you with them and now you wait for them to return?”
He was so surprised he did not know what to say. At last he stammered:
“Perhaps you are only teasing me--or it may be that you are afraid of me because I am a stranger. But no harm shall come to you through me--that I promise you. I am Nio Kuro, a Prince of Hi-no-moto, the Land Where the Day Begins. Forgive my rudeness in speaking to you, but will you not let me guard you and take you back to your friends?”
“I have no friends and nowhere to go,” she sighed.
“But whence do you come, O sweetest creature in all the kingdom?” cried the bewildered Prince. Again she shook her head.
“I belong to the forest,” she said simply.
“Henceforth you shall belong to me,” the Prince declared, and so he took her back to his Bamboo Castle as his bride. There every one wondered at this fair maid of the forest, but no one could find out who were her parents or where her home had been or anything about her, and the Prince was so charmed with her grace and beauty he never bothered his head about these questions that so worried other people. She loved him and he loved her and that was all he cared to know about her, for the Prince was a very clever man.
He bought her the loveliest gowns of purple and yellow satin, all embroidered in roses and green leaves and jeweled butterflies, and she had servants to wait upon her and fan her and a red and gold jinricksha to ride in. He called her a queer Japanese word which means Wild Flower, for he said she grew and blossomed in the forest and he transplanted her and made her a Princess. But that was just his own pet name for her, and he ordered that throughout the Land Where the Day Begins she should be known as the Princess Hoshi, or the Star Princess.