Princess Lucinda had run until she had no breath in her, the vengeful bandits having pursued her through the wild dark forest to avenge their leader who had been locked in a cupboard. They could have let their leader out, but they preferred vengeance to being helpful.

The bandits had driven Princess Lucinda until she stood at bay, on the very edge of a cliff. The brave princess looked at the deep green sea below her, and her head felt all swimmy. This happens to even the bravest people when they are not used to heights.

"There is but one slender ray of hope, and I fear 'tis a vain one," said Princess Lucinda to herself. "But if I must choose between being captured by bandits, or leaping into the snow-capped waves beneath, then I know which one shall be my choice."

The princess flung herself from the cliff in a graceful dive like an elegant swan, the wicked bandits staring at her with open mouths, for they could not believe she would be so reckless. Nobody had told them it was rude to stare and leave your mouth open, they were very badly brought up and didn't know any better, which is probably how they became bandits in the first place.

None of them had the courage to follow her, they could only watch with reluctant admiration as the brave princess plunged into the icy depths below, disappearing beneath the white sea-foam as if she had never existed.

"Alackaday," the princess mourned to herself as she sank beneath the salty waves. "Alas, I do now heartily grieve that I never learned to swim!"

For somehow in her busy life of derring-do, Princess Lucinda had neglected to take swimming lessons, and it might have been a bit her nurse's fault, because whenever the princess had gone too deep in the water at the seaside, her nurse always dragged her back and scolded her and said it was dangerous. But she forgave her nurse in her peril, for the poor woman had probably meant well.

Under she went. Down, down, down she plummeted through the depths of the sea. Down, down, deeper and down.

Princess Lucinda was very brave, but even she was fast losing hope. She'd always thought that drowning would be quiet and calm and peaceful, but it actually gave her a very bad pain in her chest and throat, and made her limbs thrash.

"Ah me, this is the end," said the princess to herself. "If I am to die within these watery depths, then let me go bravely to my doom, for there is no point living a life of courage if one's heart fails at the point of death."

Princess Lucinda was starting to feel light and faint, and there was a strange throbbing in her head that made her ears sing, when a strange and wondrous sight met her eyes beneath the waves. For a beautiful mermaid with long dark hair and a green tail had reached out her hand to the princess.

"Come with me," said the mermaid in a burbly sort of voice as bubbles trailed from her lips.

She stretched out her hand, and Princess Lucinda took it, as if her life depended upon it ...