Still held by the idea that she was dreaming, the Princess only continued to look into his face without replying to his words.
"Rest here for a short time, and sleep if you can, while I watch over you," he continued. "When you have become strong enough to travel, my horse shall carry you to my father's palace, which stands not very far from this spot: once there, my mother will be delighted to tend upon you as if you were her own daughter."
"Take me to your kind mother," she said, rising, the soft tones of her own voice sounding in her ears as if they came from the lips of some other person than herself.
The handsome young Prince—for he was no less—blew a golden whistle suspended to his neck by a jewelled chain, and in a few moments a splendidly caparisoned horse came to him from out the forest.
Upon the back of this noble steed the Prince gallantly lifted his beautiful charge, and taking the bridle on his hand, led him through the forest openings, walking by the Princess's side and relating to her how, while hunting, it had been his blest fortune to see her helpless condition in her boat, and, by swimming out to her, rescue her at the moment when her rude vessel was on the point of sinking with her beneath the waves.
She listened silently to all he said to her, filled with an inexplicable sense of wonder at herself in finding that ever the voice of a man could fall sympathetically on her ears! "I must be dreaming!" she said to herself again and again.
At last, on reaching an eminence, the Prince pointed to a noble pile of buildings on the outskirts of a great city, and said—something of sadness coming into the tone of his voice:
"Yonder is my father's palace; we shall reach it in a very little time—and then the happy privilege of these delightful moments will cease to be mine, never to be renewed, perhaps."
All things about her seemed, at the sound of those words, to melt into a roseate mist, carrying with them all sense of herself. Apart from her will, unconsciously, she held out her hand to her preserver, who pressed it to his lips with tender gratitude.
Clearly and with wonderful sweetness of intonation, the gay laugh which had greeted her on so many eventful moments of her life once more rang in the Princess's ears.