THE QUE EX'S TRIPLETS. 351
It was employed more agreeably to itself and its master in operations which will appear anon. Most of the time the Blue Prince lay on his back among the wild flowers, watch- ing the river rippling to the sea or counting the passing of the eight moons, that alternately swelled and dwindled, now showing like the orb of the Black Prince's car, now like the Green Prince's boat. Sometimes he read scraps of papyrus, and his face shone.
One lovely starry night, as the Blue Prince was watching the heavens, it seemed to him as if the eighth moon in dying had dropped out of the firmament and was falling upon him. But it was only the Black Prince come back. His garments were powdered with snow, his brows were knitted gloomily, he had a dejected, despondent aspect.
"Thou here !" he snapped.
" Of course," said the Blue Prince cheerfully, though he seemed a little embarrassed all the same. " Haven't I been here all the time ? But go into my hut, I've kept sapper hot for thee."
" Has the Green Prince had his? "
" No, I haven't seen anything of him. Hast thou scotched the Serpent? "
" No, I haven't seen anything of him," growled the Black Prince. "I've passed backwards and forwards over the entire face of the ocean, but nowhere have I caught the slightest glimpse of him. What a fool I was to give up the magic boat ! He never seems to come to the surface."
All this while the Blue Prince was dragging his brother with suspicious solicitude towards the hut, where he sat him down to his own supper of ortolans and oysters. But the host had no sooner run outside again, on the pretext of seeing if the Green Prince was coming, than there was a disturbance and eddying in the stream as of a rally of
