When I was a young man (said the King of Wen), I left my father’s castle one morning for a day’s hunting in the forest. Late in the afternoon it chanced that I had wandered away from my attendants, and being warm and weary I threw myself down upon the moss to rest. I had lain there but a moment when I saw, not far off among the trees, a fine buck, the only game I had come upon that day. I crept cautiously in his direction, and soon came within easy bowshot of him; but just as I was fitting my arrow to the string he tossed his head and trotted off into the forest and disappeared. I made off after him as fast as I could, marking his trail by a broken branch here and there and an occasional hoof-print in the damp earth, and presently I found myself deep in a considerable thicket of underwood, and from this thicket I came out, to my surprise, upon a forest road. _A Voice from Nowhere Bids the Prince Stop_ I stood for a moment looking up and down curiously. The deer was nowhere to be seen. The road was arched in a charming manner by the branches of the trees, and at no great distance lost itself in the shadowy forest. I wondered that I had never heard of this road before, and after pondering this for a moment I began to cross the road, looking carefully for the deer’s tracks in the dust. I saw no trace of him, and I was about to push into the forest on the other side, when suddenly a voice, a low but clear voice, said distinctly in my ear, “Stop!” I looked about me, but I could see no one. There was positively no living creature near me,--unless I except a wasp which at the moment was flying about my head, and which I struck away with my hand. I walked down the road some twenty paces, peering about for the person who had spoken, and becoming more and more perplexed; and as I was about to enter the forest the same voice, still low but quite distinct, spoke again close into my ear: “Stop!” I stopped in bewilderment. The forest was silent as the sky; no living creature, not even a bird, could I see anywhere; there was nothing;--nothing, indeed, except the wasp which was still flying about my head and which now began to annoy me exceedingly. I went on again, striking out at the wasp, and in a moment (I assure you I began to doubt my senses), the same voice spoke again, this time close into my left ear. “Stop! Just a moment!” it said. “Look, if you please! On your left shoulder!” I craned my neck about, and there was nothing on my left shoulder except the wasp. The wasp was there, indeed, and I made as if to brush him off; but the voice said, “Don’t, if you please!” and I stayed my hand. You may imagine that I was more astonished than ever. I gazed at the wasp intently, and as I did so the voice began to murmur, in a kind of rapid, buzzing drone, into my left ear. “Mercy on us!” I cried. “It’s the wasp that’s talking!” It was true, beyond a doubt. “Yes!” said the voice. “Please listen! If you’d only be so good--I really wish you would!”