g's council chamber the King and all his ministers woke up
with a start. The ministers rubbed their eyes and looked very sheepish,
for each of them thought that he was alone in being caught napping.

"Your Majesty was saying . . . ?" said the Prime Minister respectfully,
leaning forward.

"I was saying . . ." said the King. "What was I saying?" And he stretched
out his arms and yawned. "I crave your pardon, my lords. I do believe
I've been asleep. Heigho! but my joints are stiff."

"It was but an after-dinner nap," said the Prime Minister. "Your Majesty
is overspent with the hard hunting yesterday. Is it your Majesty's will
that we should proceed with our business, or shall the Council rise
until to-morrow?"

"Go on, my lords, go on," cried the King heartily. "My little nap has
wonderfully refreshed me. What say you, shall we pass that bill we were
discussing a few minutes ago?"

But at this moment a page came into the room with a message from the
Queen, and as soon as he received it the King left his seat in the
council chamber and went to her.

Alone, among all the people in the castle, the Queen had realised
immediately she awoke from her charmed sleep, exactly what had happened.
She remembered the words of the fairy godmother, and she knew that what
she had foretold had come to pass, and that the sleep from which she and
everybody else in the castle had just awakened had lasted a hundred
years.

Her first thought was of her daughter, the Princess Briar-Rose. Where
was she, and what had happened to her? If she, too, had merely fallen
asleep, all was well, but suppose the doom first spoken by the
thirteenth fairy had taken effect?

In a few words she told the King all that was in her mind, and without
delay messengers were sent all over the castle to look for the Princess.

In the meantime Briar-Rose and the young Prince were talking together in
the ruined tower. For the first time she heard the story of the
enchantment, and her eyes grew round with wonder as she listened to her
lover's account of the strange things that had happened in the castle.
When he told of the great hedge and its cruel thorns, and of the many
young men who died in trying to force their way through it, her eyes
filled with tears.

"How great their courage was," she sighed. "Oh, if only I could bring
them back to life."

But the Prince kissed her tears away, and hastened past that part of his
tale, and presently she was smiling aga