ard the Princess
call, and flew towards her, his wings were cut, and his little black
feet clipped off, and all pierced and stabbed in twenty places, he fell
back bleeding into his hiding place in the tree, and lay there groaning
and despairing, for he thought the Princess must have been persuaded to
betray him, to regain her liberty.

'Ah! Fiordelisa, can you indeed be so lovely and so faithless?' he
sighed, 'then I may as well die at once!' And he turned over on his side
and began to die. But it happened that his friend the Enchanter had been
very much alarmed at seeing the Frog chariot come back to him without
King Charming, and had been round the world eight times seeking him,
but without success. At the very moment when the King gave himself up
to despair, he was passing through the wood for the eighth time, and
called, as he had done all over the world:

'Charming! King Charming! Are you here?'

The King at once recognised his friend's voice, and answered very
faintly:

'I am here.'

The Enchanter looked all round him, but could see nothing, and then the
King said again:

'I am a Blue Bird.'

Then the Enchanter found him in an instant, and seeing his pitiable
condition, ran hither and thither without a word, until he had collected
a handful of magic herbs, with which, and a few incantations, he
speedily made the King whole and sound again.

'Now,' said he, 'let me hear all about it. There must be a Princess at
the bottom of this.'

'There are two!' answered King Charming, with a wry smile.

And then he told the whole story, accusing Fiordelisa of having betrayed
the secret of his visits to make her peace with the Queen, and indeed
saying a great many hard things about her fickleness and her deceitful
beauty, and so on. The Enchanter quite agreed with him, and even went
further, declaring that all Princesses were alike, except perhaps in
the matter of beauty, and advised him to have done with Fiordelisa, and
forget all about her. But, somehow or other, this advice did not quite
please the King.

'What is to be done next?' said the Enchanter, 'since you still have
five years to remain a Blue Bird.'

'Take me to your palace,' answered the King; 'there you can at least
keep me in a cage safe from cats and swords.'

'Well, that will be the best thing to do for the present,' said his
friend. 'But I am not an Enchanter for nothing. I'm sure to have a
brilliant idea for you before long.'

In the meanti