e have fed
you, and you are not hungry. The queen's eye is on you. Up, and run
for your life! If you stay here, when you wake up to-morrow you will
be dead.'

'Where shall I go?' said the king's son. 'Go,' answered the birds,
'and hide in the rushes on the island of the pool of sweet waters!'

When the queen's messengers came to the tarn-stones, it was as though
five thousand people had been feeding: they found crumbs enough to
fill twelve baskets full, lying in the cave; but no king's son could
they lay their hands on.

The king's son was lying hidden among the rushes on the island of the
great pool of sweet waters; and thick and fast came silver-scaled
fishes, feeding him.

It took the queen three days of hard gazing in her crystal, before
she found how the fishes all swam to a point among the rushes of the
island in the pool of sweet waters, and away again. Then she knew: and
running to her messengers she cried: 'He is among the rushes on the
island in the pool of sweet waters; and all the fishes are feeding
him!'

The fishes said to the king's son: 'The queen's eye is on you; up, and
swim to shore, and away for your life! For if they come and find you
here, when you wake to-morrow you will certainly be dead.'

'Where shall I go?' asked the king's son. 'Wherever I go, she finds
me.' 'Go to the old fox who gets his poultry from the palace, and ask
him to hide you in his burrow!'

When the queen's messengers came to the pool they found the fishes
playing at _alibis_ all about in the water; but nothing of the king's
son could they see.

The king's son came to the fox, and the fox hid him in his burrow, and
brought him butter and eggs from the royal dairy. This was better fare
than the king's son had had since the beginning of his wanderings, and
he thanked the fox warmly for his friendship. 'On the contrary,' said
the fox, 'I am under an obligation to you; for ever since you came to
be my guest I have felt like an honest man.' 'If I live to be king,'
said the king's son, 'you shall always have butter and eggs from the
royal dairy, and be as honest as you like.'

The queen hugged her magic crystal for a whole week, but could make
nothing out of it: for her crystal showed her nothing of the king's
son's hiding-place, nor of the fox at his nightly thefts of butter and
eggs from the royal dairy. But it so happened that this same fox was
a sort of half-brother of the queen's; and so guilty did he feel with
his b