Before he had finished his song, the princess was just under the place
where he sat, and looking up to find him. Her ears had led her truly.

"Would you like a fall, princess?" said the prince, looking down.

"Ah! there you are! Yes, if you please, prince," said the princess,
looking up.

"How do you know I am a prince, princess?" said the prince.

"Because you are a very nice young man, prince," said the princess.

"Come up then, princess."

"Fetch me, prince."

The prince took off his scarf, then his swordbelt then his tunic, and
tied them all together, and let them down. But the line was far too
short. He unwound his turban, and added it to the rest, when it was all
but long enough; and his purse completed it. The princess just managed
to lay hold of the knot of money, and was beside him in a moment. This
rock was much higher than the other, and the splash and the dive were
tremendous. The princess was in ecstasies of delight, and their swim was
delicious.

Night after night they met, and swam about in the dark clear lake, where
such was the prince's gladness, that (whether the princess's way of
looking at things infected him, or he was actually getting light-headed)
he often fancied that he was swimming in the sky instead of the lake.
But when he talked about being in heaven, the princess laughed at him
dreadfully.

When the moon came, she brought them fresh pleasure. Everything looked
strange and new in her light, with an old, withered, yet unfading
newness. When the moon was nearly full, one of their great delights was
to dive deep in the water, and then, turning round, look up through it
at the great blot of light close above them, shimmering and trembling
and wavering, spreading and contracting, seeming to melt away, and again
grow solid. Then they would shoot up through the blot, and lo! there was
the moon, far off, clear and steady and cold, and very lovely, at the
bottom of a deeper and bluer lake than theirs, as the princess said.

The prince soon found out that while in the water the princess was very
like other people. And besides this, she was not so forward in her
questions or pert in her replies at sea as on shore. Neither did she
laugh so much; and when she did laugh, it was more gently. She seemed
altogether more modest and maidenly in the water than out of it. But
when the prince, who had really fallen in love when he fell in the lake,
began to talk to her about love, she always turned her