At this moment the Magician opened the door and came into the room. When he saw the Princess he stopped short, and his face turned black with rage and fear. At the same moment the second band about his middle flew apart.
“Ah, well!” he cried to the Prince, “no doubt you think you are very clever, but remember there is still another night, and next time you may not prove so lucky in keeping the Princess with you.”
So saying he went away with the Princess, and the Prince saw him no more until evening. Then for the third time he came, and brought the Princess with him.
“Watch her well,” said he, “for I promise you will not have so easy a task this time as you have had before.”
Then he went away, and the four comrades set themselves to watch. But again all happened as it had before. In spite of themselves they could not stay awake. First they nodded and then they snored, and then they fell into such a deep sleep that if the walls had fallen about them they would not have known it. For this was an enchanted sleep that the Magician had thrown upon them in order to take away the Princess.
Not until day began to dawn did the four awake, and when they did there was nothing to be seen of the Princess.
“Well, she is not here in the room,” said Sharpsight, “so methinks I’d better look outside.”
Then he leaned from the window, and for a long time he looked about him. At last he spoke. “Master, I see the Princess, but to bring her back will not be such an easy task as it was before. Three hundred miles from here is a sea. At the bottom of the sea is a shell. In that shell is a pearl, and that pearl is the Princess. But to bring that pearl up from the sea is a task for Broad as well as Long.”
“Very well,” said the Prince, “then Long must take Broad with him on one shoulder. Only make haste and return again quickly, in heaven’s name, or the Magician may be here before you are back, and we shall be turned into stone.”
Well, the three servants were willing enough to be off. Long stretched himself out until he was three times as tall as he had been the first time, and that was the most he could stretch. Then he went away, thirty miles at a step. At that rate it was no time before he came to the sea. But the sea was fathoms deep, and the shell lay at the very bottom of it, and try as he might he could not reach it.