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CHAPTER X
And now, as the Prince drew nearer, he could see that the story he had heard about that terrible place was true, for held in the tangle of briar were the bones of many unhappy young men who had tried to force their way through to the castle. Rags and tatters of their finery hung upon the great thorns that pointed menacingly like sharp claws. Here and there upon the ground beneath lay pieces of rusty armour, a helmet surrounded by a coronet of gold that once had belonged to a King’s son, a shield with a Prince’s device, a sword with jewel-encrusted hilt worth a King’s ransom. There they lay, all disregarded among the blanched bones upon the grass, and the ground-ivy spread out its leaves to cover them.
Not a sound broke the deep and awful silence. No bird sang, no insect droned; there was no scurry of woodland creatures among the leaves, no sigh of wind in the trees. In all that place only the thorn hedge seemed threateningly alive, waiting to destroy the intruder who should attempt to force the secret it guarded.
”Who would blame the Prince if for a moment his heart had almost failed him? There was no gap in that hedge, and the great thorns were sharp as dagger blades to stab his flesh. But if the Prince hesitated it was not for long.