They did not know that beyond the mountains, between them and the sea, lay a tract of country, level, barren, except for a short stunted grass, and here and there a patch of tiny flowers. Not a bush—not a tree—not a resting place for bird or beast in that dreary plain. It was not a pleasant place to live.
The only sign that human creatures had ever been near the spot was a large round tower which rose up in the centre of the plain. In form it resembled the Irish round towers, which have puzzled people for so long, nobody being able to find out when, or by whom they were made. It was circular, of very firm brickwork, with neither doors nor windows, until near the top, when you could perceive some slits in the wall, through which one could not possibly creep in or look out. Its height was nearly a hundred feet.
The plain was desolate, like a desert, only without sand, and led to nowhere except the still more desolate sea-coast; nobody ever crossed it. Whatever mystery there was about the tower, it and the sky and the plain kept to themselves.
It was a very great secret indeed, a state secret, which none but so clever a man as the present king of Nomansland would ever have thought of. How he carried it out, undiscovered, I cannot tell. People said, long afterwards, that it was by means of a gang of condemned criminals, who were set to work, and executed immediately after they had done, so that nobody knew anything, or in the least suspected the real fact.
Within twenty feet of the top, some ingenious architect had planned a perfect little house, divided into four rooms. By making skylights, and a few slits in the walls for windows, and raising a peaked roof which was hidden by the parapet, here was a dwelling complete; eighty feet from the ground and hard to reach.
Inside it was furnished with all the comfort and elegance imaginable; with lots of books and toys, and everything that the heart of a child could desire.
One winter night, when all the plain was white with moonlight, there was seen crossing it, a great tall, black horse, ridden by a man also big and equally black, carrying before him on the saddle a woman and a child. The sad fierce-looking woman was a criminal under sentence of death, but her sentence had been changed. She was to inhabit the lonely tower with the child; she was to live as long as the child lived—no longer. This, in order that she might take the utmost care of him; for those who put him there were equally afraid of his dying and of his living. And yet he was only a little gentle boy, with a sweet smile. He was very tired with his long journey and was clinging to the man's neck, for he was rather frightened.
The tired little boy was Prince Dolor. He was not dead at all. His grand funeral had been a pretence; a wax figure having been put in his place, while he was spirited away by the condemned woman and the black man. The latter was deaf and dumb, so could tell nothing.
When they reached the foot of the tower, there was light enough to see a huge chain dangling half way from the parapet. The deaf mute took from his saddle-wallet a sort of ladder, arranged in pieces like a puzzle, fitted it together, and lifted it up to meet the chain. Then he mounted to the top of the tower, and slung from it a chair, in which the woman and child placed themselves and were drawn up, never to come down again. The man descended the ladder, took it to pieces and disappeared across the plain. Every month he came and fastened his horse to the foot of the tower and climbed it as before, laden with provisions and many other things. He always saw the Prince, so as to make sure that the child was alive and well, and then went away until the following month.
Prince Dolor had every luxury that even a Prince could need, and the one thing wanting—love, never having known, he did not miss. His nurse was very kind to him, though she was a wicked woman. Perhaps it made her better to be shut up with an innocent child.