two things that he loved more than all
the world--his daughter and his garden. The finest linen and the richest
silks of India or China decked the princess from the moment she was old
enough to run alone, and the ships that brought them brought also the
fairest flowers and sweetest fruits that grew in distant lands. All the
time that he was not presiding over his council, or hearing the
petitions of his people, the emperor passed in his garden, watching the
flowers open and the fruits ripen, and by-and-by he planted trees and
shrubs and made walks and alleys, till altogether the garden was the
most beautiful as well as the largest that had ever been seen.

The years passed, and the princess reached the age of fourteen; quite
old enough to be married, thought the kings and princes who were looking
out for a bride for their sons. The emperor's heart sank when he heard
rumours of embassies that were coming to rob him of his daughter, and he
shut himself up in his room to try to invent a plan by which he might
keep the princess, without giving offence to the powerful monarchs who
had asked for her hand.

For a long while he sat with his head on his hands, thinking steadily,
but every scheme had some drawback. At length his face brightened and he
sprang up from his seat.

'Yes! that will do,' he cried, and went down to attend his council,
looking quite a different man from what he had been a few hours before.

The embassies and the princes continued to arrive, and they all got the
same answer. 'The emperor was proud of the honour done to himself and
his daughter, and would give her in marriage to any man who would pass
through the garden and bring him a branch of the tree which stood at the
further end.' Nothing could surely be more easy, and every prince in
turn as he heard the conditions felt that the fairest damsel on the
whole earth was already his wife.

But though each man went gaily in, none ever came out, nor was it ever
known what had befallen them. At last so many had entered that fatal
gate that it seemed as if there could be no more princes or nobles left,
and the emperor began to breathe again at the thought that he would be
able after all to keep his daughter.

But one day a knight of great renown, named Tirius, arrived from beyond
the seas and knocked at the gate of the castle. Like the others, he was
welcomed and feasted, and when the feast was ended he craved that the
emperor would grant him the hand