Read "Bee: The Princess of the Dwarfs" by Anatole France online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Bee had been among the dwarfs for six years to a day. King Loc summoned her to his palace and ordered his treasurer in her presence to displace a large stone which seemed fixed in the wall, but which was, in reality, only inserted into it.
They all three passed through the opening left by the removal of the large stone and found themselves in a crevice of the rock where two people could not walk abreast. King Loc went forward first along the dark path and Bee followed, holding on to the skirt of the royal mantle. They went on walking for a long time. At times the walls of rock came so close together that the girl was afraid of being caught between them, without being able to move forward or back, and of dying there. But the mantle of King Loc sped before her along the dark and narrow path. At last King Loc found a bronze door, which he opened, and there was a flood of light.