noses, and their eyes would have made the bravest shudder; but as
the Prince was invisible and they did not see him, he slipped
past them into the wood. He found himself at once in a
labyrinth, and wandered about for a long time without meeting
anyone; in fact, the only sight he saw was a circle of human
hands, sticking out of the ground above the wrist, each with a
bracelet of gold, on which a name was written. The farther he
advanced in the labyrinth the more curious he became, till he was
stopped by two corpses lying in the midst of a cypress alley,
each with a scarlet cord round his neck and a bracelet on his arm
on which were engraved their own names, and those of two
Princesses.

The invisible Prince recognised these dead men as Kings of two
large islands near his own home, but the names of the Princesses
were unknown to him. He grieved for their unhappy fate, and at
once proceeded to bury them; but no sooner had he laid them in
their graves, than their hands started up through the earth and
remained sticking up like those of their fellows.

The Prince went on his way, thinking about this strange
adventure, when suddenly at the turn of the walk he perceived a
tall man whose face was the picture of misery, holding in his
hands a silken cord of the exact colour of those round the necks
of the dead men. A few steps further this man came up with
another as miserable to the full as he himself; they silently
embraced, and then without a word passed the cords round their
throats, and fell dead side by side. In vain the Prince rushed
to their assistance and strove to undo the cord. He could not
loosen it; so he buried them like the others and continued his