The little thing advanced trembling, and then they saw that she was a fair-haired young girl of about eighteen or twenty, but so thin and pale that at first glance she appeared to be a child. She was dreadfully dirty too, and clad in various garments that seemed to have belonged to someone else much larger.
"Don't frighten her, Daimur," said Prince Redmond as he stepped over beside the poor little thing.
"Tell us who you are, and what you are doing here," he said, addressing her kindly. "We will do you no harm."
"I am Princess Helda of Oaklands," she said in a very timid voice.
"And where may that be?" asked Daimur, thinking she was probably out of her head, as so far as he knew no such place existed.
"Alas," said the Princess. "Oaklands is now the Island of Despair," and she wrung her hands with a hopeless gesture.
At this answer Daimur was so amazed that he could not say a word, and it was Prince Redmond who asked the Princess to tell them her story, and whether she knew anything of Queen Amy. The Duchess had dried her eyes and stood waiting in silence for every word.
The Princess began in her quiet voice.
"When I was only fourteen years old, my parents, who were King and Queen of Oaklands and very much beloved by their subjects, one day quite by accident, offended the Evil Magician, who had been traveling through the kingdom disguised as a juggler, and entertaining crowds in the streets with his skilful tricks.
"In revenge the Evil Magician enchanted the whole kingdom, tearing our island up from the eastern sea and setting it down in this western one. He turned my father and mother and their subjects into stones and built a house and wall of them, and changed our beautiful cities into a dense forest.