For a moment all was still; then there came from somewhere off in the distance, the doleful tones of the Enchanted Banjo. THE SORROWFUL SONG OF THE SHADOWLESS KING If you find my shadow, O bring it straight to me! A shadowless King is compelled to be gloomy; I sit in the sun and I sob in my sorrow And wonder if I'll have a shadow to-morrow. I've lost my shadow; My heart is sad, O! I would be glad, O! If I but had, O! My shadow. I look in the corners, I hunt through my palace; I grieve that my shadow was stolen through malice-- Just think, if you please, of a life sad and hollow! When I take a walk there's no shadow to follow. I've lost my shadow; It is too bad, O! It makes me mad, O! To think I had, O! My shadow. My shadow was ever a thing of great beauty; It did all I did, as was its bounden duty; It echoed my sitting and standing and walking, My riding and ruling, and all but my talking. I've lost my shadow; It makes me sad, O! I would be glad, O! If I but had, O! My shadow. [Illustration: The King was very proud of his shadow _Page 89_] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX TROUBLES AT THE ROYAL PALACE About the time these events were happening the Widow Pickle was preparing to make ready the King's breakfast. As she came from her house and approached the palace, her eyes rested upon the prostrate body of the King. "This," said the Widow Pickle, "is the strangest looking object I ever saw in all my life. I wonder what it is." At this time there came around the corner of the palace the Private Secretary of the King. "Good morning, Widow Pickle," said the Private Secretary. "Have you seen his Royal Highness anywhere this morning? It is nearly his breakfast hour, and no one knows where he is." "I don't know either," said the Widow Pickle; "but I do know that it is scandalously late for any decent King to be lying abed. But tell me, what is this thing lying here, do you suppose?" As she spoke, she gave the King a poke with her foot, which immediately made him resolve to have her beheaded. The King recognized his Private Secretary and made frantic efforts to speak to him, all the time gesticulating in the wildest manner; but all he could do was to squeak as before; and the worst of it was that, as he became excited, he began again to bound up and down in the most violent manner. "Mercy on us!" said the Widow Pickle. "I didn't know it was alive! What do you suppose it is?" The Private Secretary took a second look and turned deathly pale. "Madam," said he in a whisper, "it is none less than his Royal Highness, though what has come to him I can not say. But that it is the King I can swear by these two fingers on his hands and by the pink strawberry mark upon his shoulder."