s a very great secret indeed, a state secret, which none but so
clever a man as the present king of Nomansland would ever have thought
of. How he carried it out, undiscovered, I cannot tell. People said,
long afterwards, that it was by means of a gang of condemned criminals,
who were set to work, and executed immediately after they had done, so
that nobody knew anything, or in the least suspected the real fact.

Within twenty feet of the top, some ingenious architect had planned a
perfect little house, divided into four rooms. By making skylights, and
a few slits in the walls for windows, and raising a peaked roof which
was hidden by the parapet, here was a dwelling complete; eighty feet
from the ground and hard to reach.

Inside it was furnished with all the comfort and elegance imaginable;
with lots of books and toys, and everything that the heart of a child
could desire.

One winter night, when all the plain was white with moonlight, there was
seen crossing it, a great tall, black horse, ridden by a man also big
and equally black, carrying before him on the saddle a woman and a
child. The sad fierce-looking woman was a criminal under sentence of
death, but her sentence had been changed. She was to inhabit the lonely
tower with the child; she was to live as long as the child lived--no
longer. This, in order that she might take the utmost care of him; for
those who put him there were equally afraid of his dying and of his
living. And yet he was only a little gentle boy, with a sweet smile. He
was very tired with his long journey and was clinging to the man's neck,
for he was rather frightened.

The tired little boy was Prince Dolor. He was not dead at all. His grand
funeral had been a pretence; a wax figure having been put in his place,
while he was spirited away by the condemned woman and the black man. The
latter was deaf and dumb, so could tell nothing.

When they reached the foot of the tower, there was light enough to see
a huge chain dangling half way from the parapet. The deaf mute took from
his saddle-wallet a sort of ladder, arranged in pieces like a puzzle,
fitted it together, and lifted it up to meet the chain. Then he mounted
to the top of the tower, and slung from it a chair, in which the woman
and child placed themselves and were drawn up, never to come down again.
The man descended the ladder, took it to pieces and disappeared across
the plain. Every month he came and fastened his horse to the foot o