s strange land. So, as soon as she had
fairly gone, he followed after.

He went along under the gold and silver trees, in the direction she had
taken, until at last he came to a tall flight of steps that led up to
the doorway of the snow-white palace. The door stood open, and into it
the prince went. He saw not a soul, but he heard a noise as of blows and
the sound as of some one weeping. He followed the sound, until by-and-by
he came to a great vaulted room in the very centre of the palace. A
curtain hung at the doorway. The prince lifted it and peeped within, and
this was what he saw:

In the middle of the room was a marble basin of water as clear as
crystal, and around the sides of the basin were these words, written in
letters of gold:

"Whatsoever is False, that I make True."

Beside the fountain upon a marble stand stood a statue of a beautiful
woman made of alabaster, and around the neck of the statue was a thread
of gold. The queen stood beside the statue, and beat and beat it with
her steel-tipped whip. And all the while she lashed it the statue sighed
and groaned like a living being, and the tears ran down its stone cheeks
as though it were a suffering Christian. By-and-by the queen rested for
a moment, and said, panting, "Will you give me the thread of gold?" and
the statue answered "No." Whereupon she fell to raining blows upon it as
she had done before.

So she continued, now beating the statue and now asking it whether it
would give her the thread of gold, to which the statue always answered
"No," and all the while the prince stood gazing and wondering. By-and-by
the queen wearied of what she was doing, and thrust the steel-tipped
lash back into her bosom again, upon which the prince, seeing that
she was done, hurried back to the garden where she had left him and
pretended to be gathering the golden fruit and jewel flowers.

The queen said nothing to him good or bad, except to command him to
grind at the great stone mill as he had done on the other side of the
water. Thereupon the prince did as she bade, and presently the brazen
boat came skimming over the water more swiftly than the wind. Again the
queen and the prince entered it, and again it carried them to the other
side whence they had come.

No sooner had the queen set foot upon the shore than she stopped and
gathered up a handful of sand. Then, turning as quick as lightning, she
flung it into the prince's face. "Be a black dog," she cried in