He went along under the gold and silver trees, in the direction she had taken, until at last he came to a tall flight of steps that led up to the doorway of the snow-white palace. The door stood open, and into it the prince went. He saw not a soul, but he heard a noise as of blows and the sound as of some one weeping. He followed the sound, until by-and-by he came to a great vaulted room in the very centre of the palace. A curtain hung at the doorway. The prince lifted it and peeped within, and this was what he saw:
In the middle of the room was a marble basin of water as clear as crystal, and around the sides of the basin were these words, written in letters of gold:
“Whatsoever is False, that I make True.”
Beside the fountain upon a marble stand stood a statue of a beautiful woman made of alabaster, and around the neck of the statue was a thread of gold. The queen stood beside the statue, and beat and beat it with her steel-tipped whip. And all the while she lashed it the statue sighed and groaned like a living being, and the tears ran down its stone cheeks as though it were a suffering Christian. By-and-by the queen rested for a moment, and said, panting, “Will you give me the thread of gold?” and the statue answered “No.” Whereupon she fell to raining blows upon it as she had done before.
So she continued, now beating the statue and now asking it whether it would give her the thread of gold, to which the statue always answered “No,” and all the while the prince stood gazing and wondering. By-and-by the queen wearied of what she was doing, and thrust the steel-tipped lash back into her bosom again, upon which the prince, seeing that she was done, hurried back to the garden where she had left him and pretended to be gathering the golden fruit and jewel flowers.
The queen said nothing to him good or bad, except to command him to grind at the great stone mill as he had done on the other side of the water. Thereupon the prince did as she bade, and presently the brazen boat came skimming over the water more swiftly than the wind. Again the queen and the prince entered it, and again it carried them to the other side whence they had come.
No sooner had the queen set foot upon the shore than she stopped and gathered up a handful of sand. Then, turning as quick as lightning, she flung it into the prince’s face. “Be a black dog,” she cried in a loud voice, “and join your comrades!”
And now it was that the ring that the prince’s mother had given him stood him in good stead. But for it he would have become a black dog like those others, for thus it had happened to all before him who had ferried the witch queen over the water. So she expected to see him run away yelping, as those others had done; but the prince remained a prince, and stood looking her in the face.
When the queen saw that her magic had failed her she grew as pale as death, and fell to trembling in every limb. She turned and hastened quickly away, and the prince followed her wondering, for he neither knew the mischief she had intended doing him, nor how his ring had saved him from the fate of those others.
So they came back up the stairs and out through the stone wall into the palace garden. The queen pressed her hand against the stone and it turned back into its place again. Then, beckoning to the prince, she hurried away down the garden. Before he followed he picked up a coal that lay near by, and put a cross upon the stone; then he hurried after her, and so came to the palace once more.