There is not a tower in the world so large. Fortunately it was empty, or she would have been drowned in it like a fly. The bottle was guarded by six giants. They recognised the Infanta immediately. They were the same giants who had been residing at her court and who were in love with her. The malignant Fanferluche, who did nothing without calculation, had transported them thither each on a flying dragon, and these dragons guarded the bottle when the giants slept. Many a day during the time Babiole was in the bottle did she regret her monkey's skin. She lived like the chameleons on air and dew. The place of her imprisonment was known to none. The young Prince was ignorant of it. He was not dead, and was continually inquiring for Babiole. He saw plainly enough by the melancholy of all his attendants, that a general feeling of sorrow pervaded the Court upon some subject which his natural discretion prevented him from attempting to discover; but as soon as he was convalescent, he entreated them so earnestly to give him some tidings of the Princess, that they had not the courage to conceal her loss from him. Some who had seen her enter the wood, maintained that she had been devoured by the lions; while others believed she had destroyed herself in a fit of despair. Others, again, imagined she had gone out of her mind, and was wandering about the world.
As the last notion was the least dreadful, and kept up in a slight degree the hopes of the Prince, he adopted it, and departed on Criquetin, the horse I have before mentioned, but I omitted to say that he was the eldest son of Bucephalus, and one of the best horses of the age. The Prince let the bridle fall on his neck, and suffered him to take his own road. He called loudly on the Infanta, but the echoes alone replied to him.
At length he came to the banks of a large river; Criquetin was thirsty and went in to drink, and the Prince, as before, shouted, "Babiole, lovely Babiole! where art thou?"
He heard a voice, the sweetness of which seemed to charm the waters. This voice said to him, "Advance, and you shall learn where she is." At these words the Prince, whose courage was equal to his love, clapped both his spurs into the sides of Criquetin. He plunged into the river and swam till he came to a whirlpool, into which the waves were sucked
