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The Hair Tree.
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are the first man who has been on this island since I came.”

Rupert stared in astonishment at hearing a tigress speak so plainly, and said,—

“I came in a little boat. My name is Rupert, and I am come to look for the Hair Tree. Who are you? I never heard a tigress speak before.”

“I am not really a tigress; I am a woman who was turned into a tigress by a wicked fairy. Tell me what you want with the Hair Tree, and how you managed to get here alive, and I will tell you my story.”

So Rupert told the tigress all that had happened to him; how he had set out to find the Hair Tree, and how he had picked up the nuts of the zirbal-tree, and his promise to the yellow bird, and how he had only just escaped from the sunflowers.

She listened quietly; then she said, “You owe your life to the nuts of the zirbal-tree. They are enchanted, and that is why the yellow eagle could not kill you at once, as he would otherwise have done, for he is a most spiteful creature, but the magic nuts saved you from him, as well as from a number of dangers of this island of which you do not know. You are the first living man who

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