Shaggy Man ran to the door and cried aloud:
"Brother! Brother!"
"Who calls," demanded a sad, hollow voice
from within.
"It is Shaggy--your own loving brother--who has
been searching for you a long time and has now
come to rescue you."
"Too late!" replied the gloomy voice. "No one
can rescue me now."
"Oh, but you are mistaken about that," said
Shaggy. "There is a new King of the nomes, named
Kaliko, in Ruggedo's place, and he has promised
you shall go free."
"Free! I dare not go free!" said the Ugly One,
in a voice of despair.
"Why not, Brother?" asked Shaggy, anxiously.
"Do you know what they have done to me?" came
the answer through the closed door.
"No. Tell me, Brother, what have they done?"
"When Ruggedo first captured me I was very
handsome. Don't you remember, Shaggy?"
"Not very well, Brother; you were so young when
I left home. But I remember that mother thought
you were beautiful."
"She was right! I am sure she was right," wailed
the prisoner. "But Ruggedo wanted to injure me--to
make me ugly in the eyes of all the world--so he
performed a wicked enchantment. I went to bed
beautiful--or you might say handsome--to be very
modest I will merely claim that I was good-
looking--and I wakened the next morning the
homeliest man in all the world! I am so repulsive
that when I look in a mirror I frighten myself."
"Poor Brother!" said Shaggy softly, and all the
others were silent from sympathy.
"I was so ashamed of my looks," continued the
voice of Shaggy's brother, "that I tried to hide;
but the cruel King Ruggedo forced me to appear
before all the legion of nomes, to whom he said:
'Behold the Ugly One!' But when the nomes saw my
face they all fell to laughing and jeering, which
prevented them from working at their tasks.
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