at this once she might
bid Zephyr bring her sisters to her. Eagerly they ran through the garden
into the palace, and greeted Psyche with warm embraces and gentle words,
while she on her part did everything she could think of to give them
pleasure. As before, she bade them choose whatever they most desired,
and when they had returned from the treasure-chamber and were eating
fruit under the trees by the fountain the elder sister spoke:

'How it grieves me to see you the victim of such deceit, and how I long
to be able to ward off the danger!'

'What do you mean by such words?' asked Psyche, turning pale. 'No one is
deceiving me, and no goddess could be happier than I.'

'Ah! you do not know--I dare not tell you,' gasped the other in broken
accents. 'Sister, you try; I cannot shape the words.'

'It is hard, but my duty demands it of me,' said the second sister. It
is--oh, how shall I tell it?--your husband is not such as you think, but
a huge serpent whose neck swells with venom, and whose tongue darts
poison. The men who work in the fields have watched him swimming across
the river as darkness falls, at the moment that he goes to seek you!'

Their groans and sobs, no less than their words, convinced Psyche, who
fell straightway into the pit they had digged for her.

'It is true,' she said with a trembling voice, 'that never yet have I
beheld my husband's face, and that many times he has warned me that the
moment my eyes light upon him he will abandon me for ever. His words
were always sweet and gentle, and his touch hardly resembles the skin of
a serpent. It is not easy to believe; but yet, if you know, I pray you,
of your love for me, to come to my aid in this deadly peril.'

'Ah, hapless one, it is for that we are here,' answered the elder; 'and
this is what you must do. This very night, fill a lamp full of oil, and
cover it with a dark cloth, so that not a ray of light can be seen; then
take a sharp knife and hide it in your bosom. After the serpent is sound
asleep, steal softly across the room, and snatch the cloth from the
lamp, so that you may see where to strike home, for if he should wake
before you have cut off his head your life will be forfeit.'

Having said this, they both hurriedly embraced their sister, and were
wafted home on the wings of Zephyr.

Left alone, Psyche flung herself on the ground, and for many hours lay
trying to subdue her misery. At one moment she thought that she could
not do it--