‘I have kept my most precious treasure till the last,’ said the old woman; ‘but let me go first, for the stairs are steep, and you might easily break your leg.’ So on she went, now and then calling back to the young man in the darkness. But he did not know that she had slipped aside into a recess, till suddenly he put his foot on a trap door which gave way under him, and he fell down, down, as many good knights had done before him, and his voice joined the echoes of theirs.
‘So you would not marry me!’ chuckled the old witch. ‘Ha! ha! Ha! ha!’
Meanwhile his brother had wandered far and wide, and at last he wandered back to the same great city where the other young knight had met with so many adventures. He noticed, with amazement, that as he walked through the streets the guards drew themselves up in line, and saluted him, and the drummers played the royal march; but he was still more bewildered when several servants in livery ran up to him and told him that the princess was sure something terrible had befallen him, and had made herself ill with weeping. At last it occurred to him that once more he had been taken for his brother. ‘I had better say nothing,’ thought he; ‘perhaps I shall be able to help him after all.’
So he suffered himself to be borne in triumph to the palace, where the princess threw herself into his arms.
‘And so you did go to the castle?’ she asked.
‘Yes, of course I did,’ answered he.
‘And what did you see there?’
‘I am forbidden to tell you anything about it, until I have returned there once more,’ replied he.
‘Must you really go back to that dreadful place?’ she asked wistfully. ‘You are the only man who has ever come back from it.’
‘I must,’ was all he answered. And the princess, who was a wise woman, only said: ‘Well, go to bed now, for I am sure you must be very tired.’