"Oh, poor young man," she cried. "Surely you are not a prisoner too."
"I am afraid I am," answered Daimur sadly, as he gazed at the beautiful lady, "but tell me, do you know whether Queen Amy is here? I must find her."
"I am that unhappy Queen," answered the lady. "Can it be that my faithful subjects have sent you to seek me, sir?"
"Rather I have come because I wished to undo in a small measure the mischief that the Evil Magician did," and Daimur hurriedly told her something of his adventure, and finished by wishing he had his cap and spectacles back, as he was afraid without them they would have great difficulty in escaping.
Daimur at first had hopes that Princess Helda and Redmond might find them and perhaps be able to open the door, as it was only bolted on the outside, but then he remembered that the day was now well advanced and that they must either have been trapped themselves long before this or had crept back to the ship while it was still dark.
"Is there no other way of escape but by this door?" he asked Queen Amy, after some reflection.
"No," said she. "No other way excepting through the door in my sitting-room which leads into the witches' sitting-room, and that opens into the main hall. There is generally one witch stationed in their sitting-room to keep watch over me. They still hope to get my chest of gold, you see, and that is why I am kept a prisoner here."
Daimur drew his sword and announced his intention of trying to get out to the main hall if Queen Amy was willing to go with him, to which she replied that she would indeed take any risk to get out of that dungeon and back to her dear people.
She turned at once and led the way bade through her apartment to the door which was to decide their fortunes. It was a swinging door, and Daimur pushed it open and looked in. What he saw was a great bare room with cupboards all around it, and a few plain old kitchen rockers here and there. A number of the cupboard doors were open and there could be seen on the shelves dozens of bottles, boxes, tins and pots, while over the fire in a large black pot some vile-smelling mixture was cooking.
Beside the fire on a mat, lay the old witch's black cat, apparently asleep. There was no one in the room.