The time had been long, and they were now yawning for very weariness, yet they dared not relax their vigilance, knowing, as they did, that they would be severely punished by the Wizard if they allowed the Prince to slip by them unobserved.
At last one of the Imps arose and stretched himself, for his limbs were cramped and stiff. “I go to spy out over the Plain,” he said. “I shall be absent but a moment.”
His companions nodded indifferently, and he strolled slowly toward the entrance of the cavern. All at once, he stopped, transfixed with surprise, for at the Cave Mouth he saw for a single instant a richly glowing figure standing, one who could be no other than the stranger Prince, he for whom they waited. Scarcely had he seen it, however, than it disappeared.
He rushed back to his fellows. “The Prince is here!” he whispered hoarsely. “I saw him at the Cave Mouth. To be sure he has vanished, but I know he is close by.”
The Imps started to their feet, and stood ready, the ropes of darkness with which they were to bind the Prince clutched firmly in their hands. But no one appeared, and when they searched the Cave Mouth, they did so in vain.
Presently they began to scoff at their companion. “Your eyes are wearied with long watching,” they told him. “They have played you false. Come not to us with such idle tales.”
“Nay, but I saw him,” the Imp insisted. “Without doubt this Prince has the power to make himself invisible. Even now he may have slipped past us unseen. If this be so, and I fail to tell the Wizard what I saw, I shall surely be punished. I go to warn him.”
The others shrugged their shoulders. “Go if you choose,” they said. “For our own part, we think it not impossible that he lurks in some near-by hiding-place, from whence he steals forth at times, watching his opportunity to slip in unobserved. He saw you, and has retreated to it. We will keep close watch as before. He will return, and then we will secure him. If, on the other hand, he has power to make himself invisible, and passes us unseen, we are not to blame.”
Even as they spoke thus, Prince Ember stood near them, listening to their words. It was as the first Imp had suspected. On passing into the Cave of Darkness, he had, by his own power of enchantment, made himself invisible, and having overheard the watchers talking together, he had paused, so that the Imp who had seen him might go before him and without being aware of it, would guide him directly to the Wizard.
The Imp did not stop to argue longer with his companions, but snatched up a lantern, and sped off at once, and close behind him went the unseen Prince. As they went onward, Prince Ember saw opening to either side of them many hushed and gloomy passageways, down which, without his guide, he might easily have strayed, but by his unexpected good fortune, and far sooner than, at the beginning of his journey, he had dared to hope, he came suddenly into the great Cave Hall. Its grim walls rose high on all sides, close hung with their swaying curtains of soot. The glistening fragments of charcoal that covered its floor, lay like a thick carpet beneath the feet.