him to the silence of another long day in the dungeon. The third day he
opened the door and hopped in, rubbing his webbed hands together with
fiendish pleasure, saying, "You are to have no food and drink to-night,
for the Witch has thought of a far more horrible punishment for you. In
the morning I shall surely come again, and then--beware!"

Now as he stopped to grin once more at the poor Prince, a Fly darted in,
and, blinded by the darkness of the dungeon, flew straight into a
spider's web, above the head of Ethelried.

"Poor creature!" thought Ethelried. "Thou shalt not be left a prisoner
in this dismal spot while I have the power to help thee." He lifted the
scissors and with one stroke destroyed the web, and gave the Fly
its freedom.

As soon as the dungeon had ceased to echo with the noise that Frog-eye
Fearsome made in banging shut the heavy door, Ethelried heard a low
buzzing near his ear. It was the Fly, which had alighted on
his shoulder.

"Let an insect in its gratitude teach you this," buzzed the Fly.
"To-morrow, if you remain here, you must certainly meet your doom, for
the Witch never keeps a prisoner past the third night. But escape is
possible. Your prison door is of iron, but the shutter which bars the
window is only of wood. Cut your way out at midnight, and I will have a
friend in waiting to guide you to a place of safety. A faint glimmer of
light on the opposite wall shows me the keyhole. I shall make my escape
thereat and go to repay thy unselfish service to me. But know that the
scissors move only when bidden in rhyme. Farewell."

The Prince spent all the following time until midnight, trying to think
of a suitable verse to say to the scissors. The art of rhyming had been
neglected in his early education, and it was not until the first
cock-crowing began that he succeeded in making this one:

"Giant scissors, serve me well,
And save me from the Witch's spell!"

As he uttered the words the scissors leaped out of his hand, and began
to cut through the wooden shutters as easily as through a cheese. In a
very short time the Prince had crawled through the opening. There he
stood, outside the dungeon, but it was a dark night and he knew not
which way to turn.

He could hear Frog-eye Fearsome snoring like a tempest up in the
watch-tower, and the old Witch was talking in her sleep in seven
languages. While he stood looking around him in bewilderment, a Firefly
alighted on his arm. Flas