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Trumkard did not encourage him much, and proposed that they should continue their journey; but the Prince would not listen to such advice, and as soon as he had finished his breakfast, he went back to the palace in order to try and see his Princess. But all the doors were fastened, and it was evident that there was no admission for the public that day. A great crowd stood around the gates, and they were very much excited about something.

The Prince learned from their discourse that it was thought that the Princess who played so splendidly, could certainly sing as well, and there was a suspicion that the Prime Minister, who had governed the people so long, was afraid of her powers, and had sent her away. Indeed, a certain Habbed-il-Gabbed, who kept a goat’s-cheese shop, and who had a cousin who was one of the royal-black-eunuch-guards, had heard from him that the Princess had certainly disappeared, and that the public suspicions were very likely to be correct.

At this news the Prince smote his breast, and became very sad; and all that day and night, and the next day until sundown, he hung around the palace, hoping to get in. Trumkard was with him a great part of the time, and brought him cakes and things to keep him from starving. In the early evening of the second day, the Prince, while walking round the palace, saw a boy come out of a back-alley gate, to empty some ashes. Rushing at him, he seized him, and demanded of him news of the Princess. The boy, however, was deaf and dumb, and could not answer him; and the Prince perceiving this, and being very expert in making signs, asked him in that way what had become of his lady-love. The boy then replied by a sign representing a heavy door, with four locks, a big bar, and a chain; and a black eunuch with a drawn sword, asleep before it.

Then the Prince tore his hair, and groaned, and went home to Trumkard. But he could not sleep; and when the moon arose, he got up and wandered far away beyond the walls of the city, until he came to the borders of the sea. There he saw, roaming about upon the sands, numbers of water-women, who every now and then blew upon conch-shells, looking about them in every direction, as if they expected some one to answer them. When the Prince perceived them, he slipped softly from rock to rock, keeping himself well concealed, until he came near one of them, when he made a sudden rush and caught her, while all the others, with loud cries, dashed into the sea. The one he had captured, struggled and cried piteously; but, in as few words as possible, he entreated her to be quiet, and to understand that if she was looking for a Princess, he could tell her where she was, or at least where she had been. The water-woman then became quiet, and the Prince told her all he knew, and how anxious he was to find the beautiful Princess. The good woman of the sea then told him that she and her companions had come up on the shore every night for a year, hoping that the Princess would stray that way, and be induced by them to return to her ocean home. Then she told him who the Princess really was, and thus her story ran.

When the late mighty King, Barradin, was quite young, he married a daughter of the ocean, at which his father, much incensed, drove him from the court. He retired far from men, and a little son was born to him. In a few years his wife died, and he was left alone with his son. When this boy grew up, he also married a water-woman, and, having so much of their blood in his veins, he went down to live with his wife’s relations, leaving his father to do as well as he could by himself, until he ascended the throne. When Barradin became king, he did not marry a queen, or cut off people’s heads, or go to war, or build palaces; but he took his chief delight in music, and encouraged the love of it among his people. So it was in the hope that one of his descendants might some day sit upon the throne, that he composed the magical music; for he knew that no one but a descendant of the ocean-folk could sing that music, and none but those of his blood could read it, for there was magic in his family.