rd had reluctantly said good-bye to the
Princess, she rushed off to the Queen, and told her all she had seen and
heard.

Then the Queen sent for Turritella, and they talked it over, and very
soon came to the conclusion than this Blue Bird was no other than King
Charming himself.

'Ah! that insolent Princess!' cried the Queen. 'To think that when we
supposed her to be so miserable, she was all the while as happy as
possible with that false King. But I know how we can avenge ourselves!'

So the spy was ordered to go back and pretend to sleep as soundly as
ever, and indeed she went to bed earlier than usual, and snored as
naturally as possible, and the poor Princess ran to the window and
cried:

'Blue Bird, blue as the sky,
Fly to me now, there's nobody by!'

But no bird came. All night long she called, and waited, and listened,
but still there was no answer, for the cruel Queen had caused the fir
tree to be hung all over with knives, swords, razors, shears,
bill-hooks, and sickles, so that when the Blue Bird heard 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. Ther