The young pair had almost reached the edge of the wood, when the maiden stopped again. ‘Something has happened,’ said she. ‘The ball is moving in my hand,’ and looking round she beheld a cloud flying towards them, large and blacker than the first, and striped with red. ‘Those are our pursuers,’ cried she, and turning the ball three times in her hand she spoke to it thus: ‘Listen to me, my ball, my ball. Be quick and change us both. Me into a wild rose bush, And him into a rose on my stem.’ And in the twinkling of an eye it was done. Only just in time too, for the goblins were close at hand, and looked round eagerly for the stream and the fish. But neither stream nor fish was to be seen; nothing but a rose bush. So they went sorrowing home, and when they were out of sight the rose bush and rose returned to their proper shapes and walked all the faster for the little rest they had had. ‘Well, did you find them?’ asked the old man when his goblins came back. ‘No,’ replied the leader of the goblins, ‘we found neither brook nor fish in the desert.’ ‘And did you find nothing else at all?’ ‘Oh, nothing but a rose tree on the edge of a wood, with a rose hanging on it.’ ‘Idiots!’ cried he. ‘Why, that was they.’ And he threw open the door of the seventh stall, where his mightiest goblins were locked in. ‘Bring them to me, however you find them, dead or alive!’ thundered he, ‘for I will have them! Tear up the rose tree and the roots too, and don’t leave anything behind, however strange it may be!’ The fugitives were resting in the shade of a wood, and were refreshing themselves with food and drink. Suddenly the maiden looked up. ‘Something has happened,’ said she. ‘The ball has nearly jumped out of my bosom! Some one is certainly following us, and the danger is near, but the trees hide our enemies from us.’ As she spoke she took the ball in her hand, and said: ‘Listen to me, my ball, my ball. Be quick and change me into a breeze, And make my lover into a midge.’ An instant, and the girl was dissolved into thin air, while the prince darted about like a midge. The next moment a crowd of goblins rushed up, and looked about in search of something strange, for neither a rose bush nor anything else was to be seen. But they had hardly turned their backs to go home empty-handed when the prince and the maiden stood on the earth again. ‘We must make all the haste we can,’ said she, ‘before the old man himself comes to seek us, for he will know us under any disguise.’ They ran on till they reached such a dark part of the forest that, if it had not been for the light shed by the ball, they could not have made their way at all. Worn out and breathless, they came at length to a large stone, and here the ball began to move restlessly. The maiden, seeing this, exclaimed: