shall soon have to seek
the Fairy Despair, ruler of half this island. She carries off the
lovers who have been cast away by their mistresses, and wish to have
done with life. She places them in a labyrinth where they are
condemned to walk for ever, with a bracelet on their arms and a cord
round their necks, unless they meet another as miserable as
themselves. Then the cord is pulled and they lie where they fall, till
they are buried by the first passer-by. Terrible as this death would
be,' added the Prince, 'it would be sweeter than life if I had lost
your love.'

The sight of all these happy lovers only made the Prince grieve the
more, and he wandered along the seashore spending his days; but one
day he was sitting on a rock bewailing his fate, and the impossibility
of leaving the island, when all in a moment the sea appeared to raise
itself nearly to the skies, and the caves echoed with hideous screams.
As he looked a woman rose from the depths of the sea, flying madly
before a furious giant. The cries she uttered softened the heart of
the Prince; he took the stone from his mouth, and drawing his sword he
rushed after the giant, so as to give the lady time to escape. But
hardly had he come within reach of the enemy, than the giant touched
him with a ring that he held in his hand, and the Prince remained
immovable where he stood. The giant then hastily rejoined his prey,
and, seizing her in his arms, he plunged her into the sea. Then he
sent some tritons to bind chains about the Prince of the Golden Isle,
and he too felt himself borne to the depths of the ocean, and without
the hope of ever again seeing the Princess.

Now the giant whom the invisible had so rashly attacked was the Lord
of the Sea, and the third son of the Queen of the Elements, and he had
touched the youth with a magic ring which enabled a mortal to live
under water. So the Prince of the Golden Isle found, when bound in
chains by the tritons, he was carried through the homes of strange
monsters and past immense seaweed forests, till he reached a vast
sandy space, surrounded by huge rocks. On the tallest of the rocks sat
the giant as on a throne.

'Rash mortal,' said he, when the Prince was dragged before him, 'you
have deserved death, but you shall live only to suffer more cruelly.
Go, and add to the number of those whom it is my pleasure to torture.'

At these words the unhappy Prince found himself tied to a rock; but he
was not alone in his mis