k to them, but soon discovered that they spoke an
utterly unknown language, and did not seem to understand a word he said.
This was a great aggravation to the Prince, who was not accustomed to
keep his ideas to himself, and he positively found himself wishing for
his old friend Patience. However, he had to follow his guides in
silence, and they led him into a magnificent hall; the floor was of
ebony, the walls of jet, and all the hangings were of black velvet, but
the Prince looked round it in vain for something to eat, and then made
signs that he was hungry. In the same manner he was respectfully given
to understand that he must wait, and after several hours the sixty
hooded and shrouded figures re-appeared, and conducted him with great
ceremony, and also very very slowly, to a banqueting hall, where they
all placed themselves at a long table. The dishes were arranged down the
centre of it, and with his usual impetuosity the Prince seized the one
that stood in front of him to draw it nearer, but soon found that it was
firmly fixed in its place. Then he looked at his solemn and lugubrious
neighbours, and saw that each one was supplied with a long hollow reed
through which he slowly sucked up his portion, and the Prince was
obliged to do the same, though he found it a frightfully tedious
process. After supper, they returned as they had come to the ebony room,
where he was compelled to look on while his companions played
interminable games of chess, and not until he was nearly dying of
weariness did they, slowly and ceremoniously as before, conduct him to
his sleeping apartment. The hope of consulting the Oracle woke him very
early the next morning, and his first demand was to be allowed to
present himself before it, but, without replying, his attendants
conducted him to a huge marble bath, very shallow at one end, and quite
deep at the other, and gave him to understand that he was to go into it.
The Prince, nothing loth, was for springing at once into deep water, but
he was gently but forcibly held back and only allowed to stand where it
was about an inch deep, and he was nearly wild with impatience when he
found that this process was to be repeated every day in spite of all he
could say or do, the water rising higher and higher by inches, so that
for sixty days he had to live in perpetual silence, ceremoniously
conducted to and fro, supping all his meals through the long reed, and
looking on at innumerable games of chess,