the way they met the princess, who began to talk to one of the masons, and when the rest were out of hearing she asked if he could manage to make a hole in the tower, which nobody could see, large enough for a bottle of wine and some food to pass through.
‘To be sure I can,’ said the mason, turning back, and in a few minutes the hole was bored.
At sunset a large crowd assembled to watch the youth being led to the tower, and after his misdeeds had been proclaimed he was solemnly walled up. But every morning the princess passed him in food through the hole, and every third day the king sent his secretary to climb up a ladder and look down through a little window to see if he was dead. But the secretary always brought back the report that he was fat and rosy.
‘There is some magic about this,’ said the king.
This state of affairs lasted some time, till one day a messenger arrived from the Sultan bearing a letter for the king, and also three canes. ‘My master bids me say,’ said the messenger, bowing low, ‘that if you cannot tell him which of these three canes grows nearest the root, which in the middle, and which at the top, he will declare war against you.’
The king was very much frightened when he heard this, and though he took the canes and examined them closely, he could see no difference between them. He looked so sad that his daughter noticed it, and inquired the reason.
‘Alas! My daughter,’ he answered, ‘how can I help being sad? The Sultan has sent me three canes, and says that if I cannot tell him which of them grows near the root, which in the middle, and which at the top, he will make war upon me. And you know that his army is far greater than mine.’
‘Oh, do not despair, my father,’ said she. ‘We shall be sure to find out the answer’; and she ran away to the tower, and told the young man what had occurred.
