"So had I," answered Kit, sadly; "but I never can find anything worth fighting about. Meanwhile, where is the Princess?"
"You have not won the Princess," said King Hurlyburly, who was now thoroughly cross. "I believe you are a miserable coward!"
"That is what the other boys say," answered Kit, smiling. "It is not my fault that there is nothing to fight about. Will you please send for the Princess?"
"The Princess has run away from home, so I can't send for her," said the King, irritably. "She is shut up in an enchanted forest, and surrounded with wild beasts and magic spells and giants. It is not at all a nice place for a Princess to be in, but how am I to get her away?"
"Why," exclaimed Kit, laughing, "here is something for your army to do. Let it go and rescue the Princess."
"Nothing would induce the army to go near the place," explained the King, sorrowfully; "the army is too much afraid of being bewitched."
"Hurrah!" shouted Kit, laughing more than ever. "At last I have found something brave to do! I will go and rescue the Princess."
So Kit the Coward started out on his travels once more; and no sooner did he get outside the city gates than he began to whistle his wonderful tune, and down swept all the birds of the air in hundreds, and they flew in front of him as before and led him to the very edge of the enchanted forest. There they left him, for no one can help anybody to go through an enchanted forest, and Kit knew fast enough that he must find the Princess by himself. He was not a bit afraid, though, and he plunged straight into the wood without looking back.
He had not taken two steps before he had completely lost himself. The trees were so thick overhead that not a streak of sunshine was able to get through, and the forest was so full of wild beasts that it was impossible to walk five yards without tumbling over a lion or a bear. But this did not frighten Kit at all, for he had learned to talk the language of the woods all the time that the other boys were knocking one another on the head; and so he soon made friends with every animal in the forest, and they told him the best places to find apples and nuts and blackberries, and the bees brought him the very best honey they could make, and he grew so happy and so contented that he quite forgot he was enchanted and could not escape if he wanted to.
But it is impossible to be happy for long when one is bewitched; and, one day, Kit found himself in a part of the forest that was more horrible and more frightening than any dark passage that was ever invented on the way to any nursery. It was not only dark, but it was strangely silent as well; and a curious feeling of gloom and unhappiness suddenly crept over Kit. If it had been a nice sort of silence, the sort we find when we get away from the other boys and girls into a place where it is quiet enough to hear the real sounds of the air, Kit would still have been quite happy; but here there was nothing to be heard at all, not even the brushing of the leaves, nor the blooming of the flowers, nor the growing of the grass. But the most frightening thing of all was when he clapped his hands together and stamped as hard as he could on the ground, for not a sound did he make; and when he tried to speak, he found he could only whisper; and when he burst out laughing, he made no more noise than if he had been smiling. Still, he kept his wits about him, for, of course, there was the Princess to be rescued, and at last he thought of trying to whistle. At first he could not make a note sound in the stillness, but he went on trying until the wonderful tune he had learned long ago from the birds themselves began to echo once more through the silent forest.