“Now it chanced that in my search I came upon a gnome who had dealings with our merchants and had many jewels to sell, and he, seeming to be kind, helped me until my pearl was found. Then he took me to see his own treasures, and, alas, while my eyes were feasting on the colours of the stones he showed to me, my poor beauty inflamed the avarice of his evil heart, and the desire to have me for his wife became great. So when I asked him the price of his jewels, he vowed that the only price at which he would let them go was that of my own hand in marriage. Alas, I am young and innocent, and without subtlety, nor did I know how great was his power and wickedness. As I laughed at his request his face grew dark with rage, and I saw that I had incurred the undying enmity of his cruel heart. And now for a whole year he has held me in his enchantment, striving to break me to his will by the length and weariness of my captivity; and lest search or any help should come for me from my father’s people, he has covered me in with a net, and surrounded me with walls; and here there is no pool into which the full Moon may fall, and at the mere touch of my lips upon its face, open and draw me free from my enchantment, and back into the heart of my own land. Only yonder, in the corner of the garden is a deep well, where the Moon never shines; so there is no way here left for me by which I may get free.” “Does not the gnome ever come to see you in your captivity?” asked the Prince. “If so, I may by some means be able to entrap him, and force him to let you go.” “Twice in the year he has visited me,” answered the Princess. “He comes up out of the ground in the form of a Red Mole; but he looks at me wickedly and cunningly with the eyes of a man, seeming to say, ‘Will you have me yet?’ And when I shake my head he burrows under again, and is gone till another six months shall be past.” The Prince thought for a while and said, “I do not know whether I have the power or the wit to make you free; if love only were needed for the work, to-morrow would see you as free as a bird.” The Princess, between smiles and sighs, said, “I have been most lonely here; already you make my imprisonment seem less.” Then she led him within doors, from room to room, showing him the splendours of her prison. Wherever they went, out of the floor before them rose burning jewels that hung hovering over their heads to light them as they passed; and when she struck her hands together, up from the ground rose a table covered with fruit and dainties of all sorts; and when she and the Prince had eaten, she clapped her hands again, and they disappeared by the same way that they had come.