midnight. He placed her on one, and mounted
the other himself, and they rode together down to the river to the
place where the old woman had first found the snake in her brass pot.
There the prince drew rein and said sadly: 'Do you still insist that I
should tell you my secret?' And the princess answered 'Yes.' 'If I
do,' answered the prince, 'remember that you will regret it all your
life.' But the princess only replied 'Tell me!'

'Then,' said the prince, 'know that I am the son of the king of a far
country, but by enchantment I was turned into a snake.'

The word 'snake' was hardly out of his lips when he disappeared, and
the princess heard a rustle and saw a ripple on the water; and in the
faint moonlight she beheld a snake swimming into the river. Soon it
disappeared and she was left alone. In vain she waited with beating
heart for something to happen, and for the prince to come back to her.
Nothing happened and no one came; only the wind mourned through the
trees on the river bank, and the night birds cried, and a jackal
howled in the distance, and the river flowed black and silent beneath
her.

In the morning they found her, weeping and dishevelled, on the river
bank; but no word could they learn from her or from anyone as to the
fate of her husband. At her wish they built on the river bank a little
house of black stone; and there she lived in mourning, with a few
servants and guards to watch over her.

A long, long time passed by, and still the princess lived in mourning
for her prince, and saw no one, and went nowhere away from her house
on the river bank and the garden that surrounded it. One morning, when
she woke up, she found a stain of fresh mud upon the carpet. She sent
for the guards, who watched outside the house day and night, and asked
them who had entered her room while she was asleep. They declared that
no one _could_ have entered, for they kept such careful watch that not
even a bird could fly in without their knowledge; but none of them
could explain the stain of mud. The next morning, again, the princess
found another stain of wet mud, and she questioned everyone most
carefully; but none could say how the mud came there. The third night
the princess determined to lie awake herself and watch; and, for fear
that she might fall asleep, she cut her finger with a penknife and
rubbed salt into the cut, that the pain of it might keep her from
sleeping. So she lay awake, and at midnight she saw a sna