the same thorns
and the same gloomy darkness. He was hungry and thirsty, and he looked
round for those fruits he had heard of; but he could see none of them
at the time, and the more he sought his way out, the deeper he seemed
to get into the forest. The air was very sultry and oppressive, too;
he grew weary and faint, quite sick at heart, and even the limbs of
his good horse seemed to be failing him, and hardly able to carry him
on.

Dark as it all was, it at length began to grow darker, and he
perceived that night was coming, so that the poor Prince began to give
up all hope, and to think that there would be nothing for him but to
lie down and die in despair, when suddenly he caught a sort of
twinkling light through the thick bushes, which seemed to lie in the
way he was going, and on he went, slowly enough, poor man! But still
the light was before him, till suddenly he came to a great rock,
overgrown in many places with briers and brambles. In the midst of
it, however, was the mouth of a large cave, with great masses of
stone hanging over, as if ready to fall on a traveler's head. It was a
very stern and gloomy looking place indeed, with clefts and crevices
and ragged crags all around. But a few steps in the cave some one
seemed to have built himself a house; for it was blocked up with
large, unhewn boards of wood, and in this partition there was a door
and a window, through which came the light he had seen. The Prince
dismounted from his horse, and though he did not know who might be
within, he thought it best to knock at the door, and ask for food and
shelter.

The moment he knocked a loud, hoarse voice cried: "Come in!" and tying
his horse to a tree, he opened the door.

III

Now, whatever the poor Prince had expected to find, he was certainly
disappointed; for that thicket of Adversity is full of disappointments,
as every one knows who has traveled through it. He had thought he
should see some poor woodman or honest peasant, who would welcome him
to his homely hut in the rock with kindness and benevolence; but
instead of that he beheld, seated at the table, carving away at a
piece of stick by the light of a very small twinkling candle, one of
the most tremendous monsters ever man's eyes lighted upon. In shape he
was like a man, but he was a great deal stronger than any man. His
face looked as if it were cast in iron, so hard and rigid were all the
features; and there was an ever-lasting frown plante