“It was a very gloomy day.
“She stood in the middle of the hall, and said, ‘Oh, you cold-hearted and most unkind! my spell is upon you, and the first ray of sunshine shall bring it down. Lose your present forms, and be of a more gentle and innocent race, till a queen of alien birth shall come to reign over you against her will.’
“As she spoke they crept into corners, and covered the dame’s head with a veil. And all that day it was dark and gloomy, and nothing happened, and all the next day it rained and rained; and they thrust the dame into a dark closet, and kept her there for a whole month, and still not a ray of sunshine came to do them any damage; but the dame faded and faded in the dark, and at last they said, ‘She must come out, or she will die; and we do not believe the sun will ever shine in our country any more.’ So they let the poor dame come out; and lo! as she crept slowly forth under the dome, a piercing ray of sunlight darted down upon her head, and in an instant they were all changed into deer, and the child-king too.
“They are gentle now, and kind; but where is the prince? where are the fairy knights and the fairy men?
“Wand! why do you turn?”
Now while Mopsa told her story the wand continued to bend, and Mopsa, following, was slowly approaching the foot of a great precipice, which rose sheer up for more than a hundred feet. The crowd that followed looked dismayed at this: they thought the wand must be wrong; or even if it was right, they could not climb a precipice.
But still Mopsa walked on blindfold, and the wand pointed at the rock till it touched it, and she said, “Who is stopping me?”
They told her, and she called to some of her ladies to untie the handkerchief. Then Mopsa looked at the rock, and so did the two Jacks. There was nothing to be seen but a very tiny hole. The boy-king thought it led to a bees’ nest, and Jack thought it was a keyhole, for he noticed in the rock a slight crack which took the shape of an arched door. Mopsa looked earnestly at the hole. “It may be a keyhole,” she said, “but there is no key.”
But still Mopsa walked on blindfold.