The Prince peered cautiously from behind a tree, and the Fairy pointed out the children to him. Relya saw the little chapel on the island. Before the chapel sat a little girl, pale as a white rose. She neither sang nor crooned, but sat still with her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes raised to heaven.
On the sand beside the chapel played a little boy, baby Primrose, and round his neck hung a little Gold Cross.
He played on the sand, built castles and pulled them down again with his tiny hands, and then laughed at his handiwork.
Relya watched, and as he watched he began to think. But the Votaress had no time to wait while the Prince finished thinking things out, so she softly prompted Relya.
“I will call to the little girl, noble Prince, and you shall see that she will not give up the Girdle; then do you draw your burnished sword, go up and take what is yours, and then come back to me to the Mountain, and I will guide you back down the Mountain so that my sisters shall not hurt you.”
As the Fairy said this, she secretly rejoiced, thinking how easily she would kill Relya and get the Girdle for herself, so long as Relya would bring it from the Lake. But Relya only listened with half an ear to what the Votaress was saying, for he was lost in looking at the girl.
The Fairy called to Lavender:
“Little girl, sister, throw me the Girdle, and I will take you and your brother down the Mountain.”
When Lavender heard this, her face grew yet paler, and she clasped her little hands yet more tightly. She was so sad that she could scarcely speak. She would so gladly have left the Mountain; her little heart was bursting with longing.
But all the same she would not part with her mother’s Girdle.