The prince took off his scarf, then his sword-belt, then his tunic,
and tied them all together, and let them down. But the line was far
too short. He unwound his turban, and added it to the rest, when it
was all but long enough; and his purse completed it. The princess
just managed to lay hold of the knot of money, and was beside him
in a moment. This rock was much higher than the other, and the
splash and the dive were tremendous. The princess was in ecstasies
of delight, and their swim was delicious.

Night after night they met, and swam about in the dark clear lake;
where such was the prince's gladness, that (whether the princess's
way of looking at things infected him, or he was actually getting
light-headed) he often fancied that he was swimming in the sky
instead of the lake. But when he talked about being in heaven, the
princess laughed at him dreadfully.

When the moon came, she brought them fresh pleasure. Everything
looked strange and new in her light, with an old, withered, yet
unfading newness. When the moon was nearly full, one of their great
delights was, to dive deep in the water, and then, turning round,
look up through it at the great blot of light close above them,
shimmering and trembling and wavering, spreading and contracting,
seeming to melt away, and again grow solid. Then they would shoot
up through the blot; and lo! there was the moon, far off, clear and
steady and cold, and very lovely, at the bottom of a deeper and
bluer lake than theirs, as the princess said.

The prince soon found out that while in the water the princess was
very like other people. And besides this, she was not so forward in
her questions or pert in her replies at sea as on shore. Neither