The Imps started to their feet, and stood ready, the ropes of darkness with which they were to bind the Prince clutched firmly in their hands. But no one appeared, and when they searched the Cave Mouth, they did so in vain. Presently they began to scoff at their companion. “Your eyes are wearied with long watching,” they told him. “They have played you false. Come not to us with such idle tales.” “Nay, but I saw him,” the Imp insisted. “Without doubt this Prince has the power to make himself invisible. Even now he may have slipped past us unseen. If this be so, and I fail to tell the Wizard what I saw, I shall surely be punished. I go to warn him.” The others shrugged their shoulders. “Go if you choose,” they said. “For our own part, we think it not impossible that he lurks in some near-by hiding-place, from whence he steals forth at times, watching his opportunity to slip in unobserved. He saw you, and has retreated to it. We will keep close watch as before. He will return, and then we will secure him. If, on the other hand, he has power to make himself invisible, and passes us unseen, we are not to blame.” Even as they spoke thus, Prince Ember stood near them, listening to their words. It was as the first Imp had suspected. On passing into the Cave of Darkness, he had, by his own power of enchantment, made himself invisible, and having overheard the watchers talking together, he had paused, so that the Imp who had seen him might go before him and without being aware of it, would guide him directly to the Wizard. The Imp did not stop to argue longer with his companions, but snatched up a lantern, and sped off at once, and close behind him went the unseen Prince. As they went onward, Prince Ember saw opening to either side of them many hushed and gloomy passageways, down which, without his guide, he might easily have strayed, but by his unexpected good fortune, and far sooner than, at the beginning of his journey, he had dared to hope, he came suddenly into the great Cave Hall. Its grim walls rose high on all sides, close hung with their swaying curtains of soot. The glistening fragments of charcoal that covered its floor, lay like a thick carpet beneath the feet. In the centre of the vast room stood the Wizard, quite alone. Forbidding enough in himself, clad as he was in long black robes, over which his dingy beard fell from his grim face almost to his feet, he seemed yet more so because of the huge black urns that were ranged about him in a circle. The sides of the urns were covered with curious inscriptions, and only the Wizard knew by these signs what deadly mists and vapors were confined under their ponderous lids.