"So when they had travelled on a while, the ass asked,
"'Do you see anything now?'
"'Yes,' said Boots, 'now it shines like the sun.'
"'That's whither we are bound,' said the ass; 'it's the golden castle that hangs in the air, and there lives a princess who has been stolen by a troll with nine heads; but all the wild beasts there are in the world lie on watch, and stop the way thither.'
"'Uf,' said Boots, 'I almost think I'm afraid of them.'
"'Don't say so,' said the ass; and then he told him there was no danger, if he would only make up his mind not to linger there, but to set off on his way back as soon as ever he had filled his flasks with the water, for there was no going thither but during one hour in the day, and that began at high noon; but if he were not man enough to be ready in time and to get away, the beasts would tear him into a thousand pieces.
"Well, Boots said he would be sure to do that, he would not think of staying too long.
"At the stroke of twelve they reached the castle, and there lay all the wild and savage beasts that ever were, as it were a fence before the gate, and on either side of the way. But they all slumbered like stocks and stones, and there wasn't one of them that so much as lifted a paw. So Boots passed between them, and took good heed not to tread on their toes or the tips of their tails, and he filled his flasks with the waters of life and death, and while he did that he looked up at the castle, which was as though it were cast in pure gold. It was the grandest he had ever seen, and he thought it would be grander still inside than out.
"'Stuff,' thought Boots, 'I have time enough, I can always look about me in half an hour,' and so he opened the door and went in. Well, inside it was grander than grand itself, and as he went out of one gorgeous room into another, it was as if it was all made of gold and pearls, and everything that was costliest in the world. Folk there were none; but at last he came into a bedroom where there lay another princess on a bed of gold, just as though she were dead too, but she was as grand as the grandest queen, and as red and white as blood on snow, and so lovely he had never seen anything so lovely but her picture; for she it was that was painted on it.
"Then Boots forgot both the water he was to fetch, and the wild beasts, and the castle and everything, and could only gaze at the princess; and he thought he could never have his fill of looking at her; but all the while she slept as though she were dead, and he was not able to wake her up.