a loud
voice, "and join your comrades!"

And now it was that the ring that the prince's mother had given him
stood him in good stead. But for it he would have become a black dog
like those others, for thus it had happened to all before him who had
ferried the witch queen over the water. So she expected to see him
run away yelping, as those others had done; but the prince remained a
prince, and stood looking her in the face.

When the queen saw that her magic had failed her she grew as pale as
death, and fell to trembling in every limb. She turned and hastened
quickly away, and the prince followed her wondering, for he neither knew
the mischief she had intended doing him, nor how his ring had saved him
from the fate of those others.

So they came back up the stairs and out through the stone wall into
the palace garden. The queen pressed her hand against the stone and it
turned back into its place again. Then, beckoning to the prince, she
hurried away down the garden. Before he followed he picked up a coal
that lay near by, and put a cross upon the stone; then he hurried after
her, and so came to the palace once more.

By this time the cocks were crowing, and the dawn of day was just
beginning to show over the roof-tops and the chimney-stacks of the town.

As for the queen, she had regained her composure, and, bidding the
prince wait for her a moment, she hastened to her chamber. There she
opened her book of magic, and in it she soon found who the prince was
and how the ring had saved him.

When she had learned all that she wanted to know she put on a smiling
face and came back to him. "Ah, prince," said she, "I well know who you
are, for your coming to my country is not secret to me. I have shown
you strange things to-night. I will unfold all the wonder to you another
time. Will you not come back and sup with me again?"

"Yes," said the prince, "I will come whensoever you bid me;" for he was
curious to know the secret of the statue and the strange things he had
seen.

"And will you not give me a pledge of your coming?" said the queen,
still smiling.

"What pledge shall I give you," said the prince.

"Give me the ring that is upon your finger," said the queen; and she
smiled so bewitchingly that the prince could not have refused her had he
desired to do so.

Alas for him! He thought no evil, but, without a word, drew off the ring
and gave it to the queen, and she slipped it upon her finger.

"O fool!" she