rents of diamonds. The Prince
sat down by some stunted trees whose tops had long before been broken
off by an avalanche, and began to eat the bit of bread and cheese which
he had stored in his pocket. His black horse, meanwhile, ate the grass
which grew here and there along the mountain path. And as the Prince sat
there in the bright sun and the silence of the mountains, he became
aware of a low, continuous roaring.

"There must be a waterfall near-by," said the Prince to himself. "I'll
go and see it."

So, casting another look at his steed, who was contentedly browsing, the
Prince climbed up the mountainside in the direction of the sound.

The Prince climbed and climbed, he went in this direction and in that,
yet the sound never grew any louder or fainter. Suddenly he realized
that he was hopelessly lost. The little path up which he had ridden had
vanished completely, and he had not the slightest idea in which
direction it lay. He called aloud, but only the mountain echoes answered
mockingly.

Night came, and the Prince took shelter behind a great rock. All the
next day he labored to find the path, but in vain. He grew very hungry
and cold. Every once in a while he would hear the roaring of the
waterfall, which seemed to have grown louder.

Another day dawned, and another day again. The Prince was getting very
weak. He knew that he was approaching the mysterious cataract, for the
noise of the water was now tremendous, and heaven and earth were full of
its roar. The third night came, and the full moon rose solemnly over the
snow-clad summits of the lonely and mysterious mountains. Suddenly the
Prince, walking blindly on, staggered through a narrow passage-way
between two splintered crags, and found himself face to face with the
mystery.

He stood on the snowy floor of a vast amphitheatre whose walls were the
steep sides of the giant mountains. Farthest away from him, and opposite
the moon, the wall of the bowl appeared as a giant black precipice,
whose top seemed to reach almost to the moon-dimmed stars; and over this
precipice a broad river was endlessly pouring, shining in the night like
the overflow of an ocean of molten silver. Though now very weak from
lack of food, and dizzy with the roaring of the cataract, the Prince
made his way to the shore of the foaming and eddying lake into which the
water was falling. Great was his surprise to discover that the overflow
of this lake disappeared into the earth throug