it was full of wild animals who would tear to pieces
any traveller who entered it.

'Well, I'll go,' answered the prince. 'But I really must have some
breakfast first; I shall walk all the faster.'

'If you do not hurry you will find me dead when you come back,'
murmured the queen fretfully. She thought her son was not nearly
anxious enough about her, and by this time she had begun to believe
that she really was as ill as she had said.

* * * * *

When the prince had eaten and drunk, he set off, and soon came to a
forest, and sure enough it was full of lions and tigers, and bears and
wolves, who came rushing towards him; but instead of springing on him
and tearing him to pieces, they lay down on the ground and licked his
hands. He speedily found the tree with the apples which his mother
wanted, but the branches were so high he could not reach them, and
there was no way of climbing up the smooth trunk.

'It is no use after all, I can't get up there,' he said to himself.
'What am I to do now?'

But, as he turned away, his sword chanced to touch the tree, and
immediately two apples fell down. He picked them up joyfully, and was
going away when a little dog came out of a hill close by, and running
up to him, began tugging at his clothes and whining.

'What do you want, little dog?' asked the prince, stooping down to
pat his soft black head.

The dog ran to a hole that was in the hill and sat there looking out,
as much as to say: 'Come along in with me.'

'I may as well go and see what is in there,' thought the prince, and
he went over to the hill. But the hole was so small that he could not
get through it, so he thrust his sword into it, and immediately it
became larger.

'Ha, ha!' he chuckled; 'it's worth something to have a sword like
that.' And he bent down and crept through the hole.

The first thing he beheld, when he entered a room at the very end of a
dark passage, was a beautiful princess, who was bound by an iron chain
to an iron pillar.

'What evil fate brought you here?' he asked in surprise: and the lady
answered:

'It isn't much use for me to tell you lest my lot becomes yours.'

'I am not afraid of that. Tell me who you are and what has brought you
here,' begged the prince.

'My story is not long,' she said, smiling sadly. 'I am a princess from
Arabia, and twelve robbers who dwell in this place are fighting among
themselves as to which shall have me to wife.'