When he opened his eyes next morning the light was peeping in through the port-hole, and his clothes, which had been dried, were lying beside a bath which was waiting for him. He washed and dressed and then went on deck, where the Ugly Prince stood looking out over the ship’s bows. When he saw the child he lifted him up in his arms. [Illustration: OH CRIED THE LITTLE BOY I SEE A DARK THING FAR AWAY IN FRONT] “Oh!” cried the little boy. “I see a dark thing far away in front! Why, it is the rock where the Princess is! Are we going there?” The Prince did not answer. As the sun rose out of the ocean a short time later, the vessel was drawing very near to the rock which rose, like some dark monster, out of the sea, and the Prince and the little boy were on deck, the latter looking eagerly out for the captive Princess. There she sat, just as she had sat the day before and all those weary days in the years gone by with her hands clasped over her one hope, the Golden Heart. Two dark spots could be seen in the distant sky growing smaller and smaller; they were the two cormorants flying off for food. As the Princess saw the ship the colour rushed back into her pale cheeks; she fixed her eyes on the advancing sails, and at last distinguished the tall form of the Ugly Prince standing out against the sea and sky beyond. As the vessel came under the shadow of the rock he looked up at the sweet face above him and told her to have courage, and that he had come to take her from her long imprisonment, back to the world she had left. “Throw me,” he said, “the Golden Heart that you hold.” The Princess stood up. “Thank Heaven that the cormorant is gone!” she cried. “He stands there so that, if I throw it to anyone, he may catch it in his beak and rob me of my last chance.” “But throw it carefully,” begged the little boy, “or the Prince won’t catch it.” The Prince smiled. “Now,” he called. “But, before I do so,” said the Princess, “I must tell you this; if you take it, it will bring you pain and sorrow—perhaps more than you can bear. Can you really accept it? Are you willing to take the trouble that must come?” The Ugly Prince simply held out his hands. “Throw,” he said. The little boy thought he had never seen anybody look so noble as he did, standing there with his outstretched hands and his masked face turned up to the lovely, sad figure above him. A flash pierced the air, and the Heart lay safe in the hands of the Ugly Prince. “And now,” he said as he held it, “remember that there is nothing I will not do for your sake; whatever this thing tells me to do, that will I do; wherever it tells me to go, there will I go; and, as long as there is life in me, I will not rest until I have accomplished my end.”