Morning broke , and the Prince , still full of the wonderful apparition , left his perch and returned to the palace like one in a dream , without even knowing if the fruit had been taken or not ; for his whole mind was absorbed by thoughts of Militza and how he was to find her . As soon as the head-gardener saw the Prince going towards the palace he ran to the trees , and when he saw them laden with ripe fruit he hastened to tell the King the joyful news . The King was beside himself for joy , and hurried at once to the garden and made the gardener pick him some of the fruit . He tasted it , and found the apple quite as luscious as it had been in his dream . He went at once to his son Iwanich , and after embracing him tenderly and heaping praises on him , he asked him how he had succeeded in protecting the costly fruit from the power of the magician . This question placed Iwanich in a dilemma . But as he did not want the real story to be known , he said that about midnight a huge wasp had flown through the branches , and buzzed incessantly round him . He had warded it off with his sword , and at dawn , when he was becoming quite worn out , the wasp had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared . The King , who never doubted the truth of this tale , bade his son go to rest at once and recover from the fatigues of the night ; but he himself went and ordered many feasts to be held in honour of the preservation of the wonderful fruit . The whole capital was in a stir , and everyone shared in the King 's joy ; the Prince alone took no part in the festivities . While the King was at a banquet , Iwanich took some purses of gold , and mounting the quickest horse in the royal stable , he sped off like the wind without a single soul being any the wiser . It was only on the next day that they missed him ; the King was very distressed at his disappearance , and sent search-parties all over the kingdom to look for him , but in vain ; and after six months they gave him up as dead , and in another six months they had forgotten all about him . But in the meantime the Prince , with the help of his ring , had had a most successful journey , and no evil had befallen him . At the end of three months he came to the entrance of a huge forest , which looked as if it had never been trodden by human foot before , and which seemed to stretch out indefinitely . The Prince was about to enter the wood by a little path he had discovered , when he heard a voice shouting to him : ` Hold , youth ! Whither are you going ? ' Iwanich turned round , and saw a tall , gaunt-looking man , clad in miserable rags , leaning on a crooked staff and seated at the foot of an oak tree , which was so much the same colour as himself that it was little wonder the Prince had ridden past the tree without noticing him . ` Where else should I be going , ' he said , ` than through the wood ? ' ` Through the wood ? ' said the old man in amazement .
` It 's easily seen that you have heard nothing XXXXX this forest , that you rush so blindly to meet your doom .
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