AND now, as the Prince drew nearer, he could see that the story he had
heard about that terrible place was true, for held in the tangle of
briar were the bones of many unhappy young men who had tried to force
their way through to the castle. Rags and tatters of their finery hung
upon the great thorns that pointed menacingly like sharp claws. Here and
there upon the ground beneath lay pieces of rusty armour, a helmet
surrounded by a coronet of gold that once had belonged to a King's son,
a shield with a Prince's device, a sword with jewel-encrusted hilt worth
a King's ransom. There they lay, all disregarded among the blanched
bones upon the grass, and the ground-ivy spread out its leaves to cover
them.
Not a sound broke the deep and awful silence. No bird sang, no insect
droned; there was no scurry of woodland creatures among the leaves, no
sigh of wind in the trees. In all that place only the thorn hedge seemed
threateningly alive, waiting to destroy the intruder who should attempt
to force the secret it guarded.
Who would blame the Prince if for a moment his heart had almost failed
him? There was no gap in that hedge, and the great thorns were sharp as
dagger blades to stab his flesh. But if the Prince hesitated it was not
for long. "Have I come so far to turn back now?" he thought. "These
others who have died were brave men, and though they failed, with a
courage as great as theirs I may succeed." And without wasting another
moment the Prince began to force his way through the hedge.
And now he noticed with surprise that those thorns which looked so sharp
and cruel became soft as thistledown as soon as he touched them, and the
trailing bramble branches did not entangle him but bent aside at his
touch as though they had been stems of grass. The hedge opened before
him, and as he went through it pink blossoms of wild roses bloomed on
the branches, until the tangled wall became a mass of flowers.
At last the Prince found himself on the other side of the hedge in the
gardens of the castle. Before him he could see the high towers and
turrets bathed in the fresh light of the morning sun, and as he hastened
towards them he noticed that the gardens were as trim and tidy as though
they had just been tended by the gardeners. There was no moss or weed
upon the smooth paths, the turf on the lawns was as short and firm as
though it had just been mown, and in the flower-beds everything was in
the most careful order. Spring flowers were blooming there, but they
bowed their heads upon their stalks, and even the trees seemed to hang
their arms as though asleep.
[Illustration]
Everywhere there was the same deep silence. The air, which should have
been full of the twittering of birds, was heavy and languorous. There
was no flutter of butterfly-wings or darting of flies; the fountains on
the lawns were not playing, and as the Prince glanced over the edge of
the marble basin of one of them he could see the goldfish beneath the
water-lily leaves lying still, with never a wave of the tail or flicker
of fin.
[Illustration]
So he went on over the lawns and terraces and never a waking thing did
he see, but when he came to the courtyard he saw a soldier standing
there, leaning on his pike with his head bent upon his chest. At first
the Prince thought that he was dead, but his cheek was fresh and ruddy
and it was quite plain to see that he was merely asleep. In the
courtyard itself were other human forms, all still and silent. A row of
pikemen leaned against the wall and in front of them, stretched out upon
the ground, snored the sergeant who had been drilling them when the
spell came upon the castle. A young squire, with a sleeping hawk upon
his wrist, slept leaning against a sleeping horse which he had been
about to mount. Near by lay a page with a hound in leash, both sleeping
as soundly as though they never would awake, and through a window in the
stables the Prince saw a groom lying with a straw in his mouth.
[Illustration]
In the stables themselves a like condition of things prevailed. The
horses slept at their stalls with their noses to the mangers, standing
on their four legs just as they were when they were enchanted a hundred
years before, and on the back of one of them sat the stable-cat. Here
and there upon the ground lay grooms and ostlers, fast asleep among the
straw.
From the stables the Prince made his way to the great kitchen where he
saw equally strange sights, and he could not help smiling when he came
upon the cook with her hand still outstretched to clout the head of the
unhappy scullion whom she had by the ear. Before the fires hung the
spitted partridges and fowls that were cooking for the Princess's
birthday feast, and at the table a maid had fallen asleep with her hands
in a large trough full of dough. She had been making the pastry for a
pie when the sleep fell upon her, and by her side was another maid who
had been plucking a black hen. At the sink a kitchen-knave was leaning
over the pot he had been scouring.
Then the Prince went out into the great hall and saw the courtiers
asleep in the window alcoves, or stretched out upon the polished floor.
Everywhere was a silence so profound that the Prince was almost alarmed
to hear his own breathing, and the beating of his heart sounded like a
muffled drum. On and on he went, through rooms and corridors, up
staircases and down staircases, into the Queen's chamber where he saw
the Queen and her ladies as still and silent as the rest; one of those
ladies had been reading to the Queen at the moment when the charmed
sleep fell upon the castle, and the book, a History of Troy, still lay
open on her lap. Then the Prince went into the King's room where his
Majesty sat with his ministers of state round the Council board. He
almost lingered there, for it was very curious to see those nobles as
quiet and motionless as though they had been waxworks in a show. Some of
them were frowning as though in deep thought, and some smiling as though
they had suddenly remembered something clever to say. The King himself,
at the head of the Council table, had evidently fallen asleep in the
very midst of a speech, for his arm lay outstretched on the table with
pointing finger, and, by his side, his secretary's fingers still held
the pen with which he was inscribing on a roll of parchment the royal
words.
So the Prince hurried through the castle from top to bottom until he had
glanced into every room and opened every door. And still he knew that
there was something more to see, for nowhere had he come across the
sleeping Princess. Many maidens he had seen of surpassing beauty, but
his heart told him that none of them all was the maiden whom he had come
to awaken.
Down he went into the courtyard again and found another stairway which
led to the battlements. There stood the watchmen whose duty it was to
look out over the country and report the arrival of travellers, but
they, too, were all asleep, though one of them had his horn in his hand
as though he had been about to blow it when he was suddenly overcome by
the charmed slumber.
From the battlements the Prince climbed, in turn, into each of the
turrets, but there was nobody in them at all, and no living thing except
the owls asleep in the crevices of the walls, and the bats that hung
head downward from the rafters. Now only one small turret remained to be
explored. It was the oldest of the turrets, almost a ruin, and plainly
long unused, for the iron door was rusty and the ivy trailed about the
walls.
The Prince approached it with a beating heart, for there he knew he
should find what he sought. He threw open the creaking door; with
impatient feet he mounted the crazy, winding stair, opened the door at
the top and entered a little dark room.
And then--and then he started forward with a cry of joy and wonder, for
lying on the couch below the narrow window he saw the Princess.
She was lying upon a couch with her lovely hair spread out like a stream
of gold; and, oh! no words can tell how beautiful she was. Softly the
Prince came near and bent over her. He touched her hand; it was warm as
in life, but she did not stir. No sound of breathing came from her
parted lips, fresh and sweet as the petals of a rose; her eyes were
closed.
For a long time the Prince stood and gazed upon her, for never in all
his life had he seen a maiden so lovely. Then suddenly he bent down and
kissed her lips.
[Illustration]
That was the end of the enchantment. The Princess's eyelids quivered;
languidly she moved her head and stretched out her arms. Her eyes opened
and she smiled.
"Is it you, my Prince?" she said. "How long you have kept me waiting!"
[Illustration]