So the King sent for him then, and he gave him a purse of money that would last him for ten years or for twenty years, and he bade him go make a way for himself. So the King’s son set out, and he travelled the roads till night time, and he saw a cottage before him, and a light in it, and he opened the door and went in, and all he saw in it was one old man. ‘A welcome before you, King’s son,’ says the old man. ‘I thank you for that welcome,’ says he; ‘but how is it you know me to be a King’s son?’ So the old man showed him a sword that hung over the top of the door. ‘If any man comes through that door,’ he says, ‘that is not a King’s son, that sword will fall and will whip the head of him. And it is a good time you came here,’ he said, ‘and you could have come at no better time.’ ‘Why is that?’ says the young man. ‘There is a pool there beyond,’ says the old man, ‘and one morning in the whole year, there comes to it Beswarragal, that is the most beautiful woman of the whole world, having her twelve waiting maids with her, and they go swimming in that pool. And to-morrow is the day they are coming,’ he said, ‘and let you hide yourself till they will go into the water, and Beswarragal will be the last to strip, and let you take her clothes and hide them, and she will not be able to go away, and whatever you will ask her she will do it. And what you will ask of her is herself,’ he said. [Illustration: BESWARRAGAL AND HER MAIDENS BATHE.] So the young man went down to the pool, and Beswarragal and her twelve beautiful waiting maids were in the water, and he took her clothes and hid them. And when they were tired swimming they put their clothes on, and then they turned to birds and they flew away, all but Beswarragal, and she could not fly. So the King’s son came to her and he gave her the clothes. ‘What will you give me now?’ says he. ‘I will give you anything you will ask,’ says she. ‘I ask nothing but yourself,’ says he; ‘you to marry me and to be my wife.’ ‘How will you go away with me and you not able to fly?’ says she. But she put a loop of the chain she had about his neck, and she took him by the hand and she flew away with him to a garden, and she brought him into the gardener’s house. ‘And there is one thing I have to tell you,’ she said; ‘you must never wonder at me or say anything about me at all.’ ‘I will never do that,’ says he. And every day she brought him food to the gardener’s house, and they lived together there for a while. (The old man of a hundred years was getting tired, and the old woman that was his wife sent out the old woman sitting on the doorstep to get him a glass of porter. The old man drank a sup of it, and then the story went on.) But at last one day she passed by him in the garden, and when he saw her so beautiful he turned and he said to the gardener: ‘There was never a lady so beautiful as mine in the whole world.’ ‘There never was,’ says the gardener. ‘And you will be without her now,’ he says.