With its bright point he touched the wall in that selfsame place where the Wizard was wont to pass through, and on its blackness he traced the scarlet outline of a door. Breathlessly the Shadow Witch followed with her eyes the moving point of fire, followed it till the outline was complete, and the sword fell back into its sheath. Without a word, but with swiftly beating heart, she waited in her place by Prince Ember’s side to see what wondrous thing that sword could do. Wondrous indeed, for silently and of itself the door swung open, and the corridor that led to freedom was before her. Prince Ember took her hand, and together they crossed the threshold, but when they had passed it he paused, and spoke one charmed word. As silently as it had opened, the door closed behind them at its creator’s command, and its outlines vanished, leaving the wall the grim unbroken barrier that it had been before. “Ah, my good Prince!” whispered the Shadow Witch looking upon it. “What magic is yours!” He spoke no word in answer, but raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. Then they began their journey along the windings of the corridor, that stretched away and away into a gloom that seemed to have no end. Yet the place where they trod was bright about them, made so by the ruddy glow which streamed from the figure of Prince Ember. In the warmth and cheer of it the Shadow Witch glided happily, and as they left her prison farther and farther behind, she became more and more her former self, and again felt stirring to life within her that old-time power of magic of which she had been so long deprived. They came at length to the wall which the Wizard had set to mislead his sister. Seeing nothing to arouse their suspicions, they went straight on. After traveling for some distance, however, Prince Ember all at once became aware that it was not the way over which he had gone with the Wizard and his servants. He stopped, and began to look sharply about him. On every hand it was unfamiliar to him. The Shadow Witch saw that he was troubled, but she could not guess the reason. “What is it?” she asked anxiously. “When we left the prison,” he answered, “we took the way by which I had come to you. There was no other. But now it is not the same.” “There has been no place where we could have turned aside,” she assured him. “Nowhere has there appeared any other way open to us.” “And yet we have gone astray,” the Prince insisted. “There can be no doubt of it. All that I see now, I have never seen before.” “You are sure of it?” asked his companion. “I am sure of it.” The eyes of the Shadow Witch flashed with sudden understanding. “It is the enchantment of my brother,” she declared. “Lest, perhaps, I should escape him, he has closed the true way, and left this open as a trap for me. Be sure that it leads not to the Cave Hall, except through dangers into which he believes that I will not dare to venture.”