were very likely to be correct.

At this news the Prince smote his breast, and became very sad; and all
that day and night, and the next day until sundown, he hung around the
palace, hoping to get in. Trumkard was with him a great part of the
time, and brought him cakes and things to keep him from starving. In the
early evening of the second day, the Prince, while walking round the
palace, saw a boy come out of a back-alley gate, to empty some ashes.
Rushing at him, he seized him, and demanded of him news of the Princess.
The boy, however, was deaf and dumb, and could not answer him; and the
Prince perceiving this, and being very expert in making signs, asked him
in that way what had become of his lady-love. The boy then replied by a
sign representing a heavy door, with four locks, a big bar, and a chain;
and a black eunuch with a drawn sword, asleep before it.

Then the Prince tore his hair, and groaned, and went home to Trumkard.
But he could not sleep; and when the moon arose, he got up and wandered
far away beyond the walls of the city, until he came to the borders of
the sea. There he saw, roaming about upon the sands, numbers of
water-women, who every now and then blew upon conch-shells, looking
about them in every direction, as if they expected some one to answer
them. When the Prince perceived them, he slipped softly from rock to
rock, keeping himself well concealed, until he came near one of them,
when he made a sudden rush and caught her, while all the others, with
loud cries, dashed into the sea. The one he had captured, struggled and
cried piteously; but, in as few words as possible, he entreated her to
be quiet, and to understand that if she was looking for a Princess, he
could tell her where she was, or at least where she had been. The
water-woman then became quiet, and the Prince told her all he knew, and
how anxious he was to find the beautiful Princess. The good woman of the
sea then told him that she and her companions had come up on the shore
every night for a year, hoping that the Princess would stray that way,
and be induced by them to return to her ocean home. Then she told him
who the Princess really was, and thus her story ran.

When the late mighty King, Barradin, was quite young, he married a
daughter of the ocean, at which his father, much incensed, drove him
from the court. He retired far from men, and a little son was born to
him. In a few years his wife died, and he was left alone with his