Soon after he obtained an order to send the King away--which was done in great state. The nation learned, without much surprise, that the poor little Prince--had fallen ill on the road and died within a few hours; so declared the physician in attendance, and the nurse who had been sent to take care of him. They brought the coffin back in great state, and buried him with his parents. The country went into deep mourning for him, and then forgot him, and his uncle reigned in his stead. CHAPTER III. And what of the little lame prince, whom everybody seemed so easily to have forgotten? Not everybody. There were a few kind souls, mothers of families, who had heard his sad story, and some servants about the palace, who had been familiar with his sweet ways--these many a time sighed and said, "Poor Prince Dolor!" Or, looking at the Beautiful Mountains, which were visible all over Nomansland, though few people ever visited them, "Well, perhaps his Royal Highness is better where he is." They did not know that beyond the mountains, between them and the sea, lay a tract of country, level, barren, except for a short stunted grass, and here and there a patch of tiny flowers. Not a bush--not a tree--not a resting place for bird or beast in that dreary plain. It was not a pleasant place to live. The only sign that human creatures had ever been near the spot was a large round tower which rose up in the centre of the plain. In form it resembled the Irish round towers, which have puzzled people for so long, nobody being able to find out when, or by whom they were made. It was circular, of very firm brickwork, with neither doors nor windows, until near the top, when you could perceive some slits in the wall, through which one could not possibly creep in or look out. Its height was nearly a hundred feet. The plain was desolate, like a desert, only without sand, and led to nowhere except the still more desolate sea-coast; nobody ever crossed it. Whatever mystery there was about the tower, it and the sky and the plain kept to themselves. It was a very great secret indeed, a state secret, which none but so clever a man as the present king of Nomansland would ever have thought of. How he carried it out, undiscovered, I cannot tell. People said, long afterwards, that it was by means of a gang of condemned criminals, who were set to work, and executed immediately after they had done, so that nobody knew anything, or in the least suspected the real fact. Within twenty feet of the top, some ingenious architect had planned a perfect little house, divided into four rooms. By making skylights, and a few slits in the walls for windows, and raising a peaked roof which was hidden by the parapet, here was a dwelling complete; eighty feet from the ground and hard to reach. Inside it was furnished with all the comfort and elegance imaginable; with lots of books and toys, and everything that the heart of a child could desire.