HISS!
The princess' pleasure in the lake had grown to a passion, and she
could scarcely bear to be out of it for an hour. Imagine, then, her
consternation, when, diving with the prince one night, a sudden
suspicion seized her, that the lake was not so deep as it used to be.
The prince could not imagine what had happened. She shot to the surface
and, without a word, swam at full speed towards the higher side of the
lake. He followed, begging to know if she was ill, or what was the
matter. She never turned her head, or took the smallest notice of his
question. Arrived at the shore she coasted the rocks with minute
inspection. But she was not able to come to a conclusion, for the moon
was very small, and so she could not see well. She turned therefore and
swam home, without saying a word to explain her conduct to the prince,
of whose presence she seemed no longer conscious. He withdrew to his
cave, in great perplexity and distress.
"Next day she made many observations, which, alas! strengthened her
fears. She saw that the banks were too dry, and that the grass on the
shore and the trailing plants on the rocks were withering away. She
caused marks to be made along the borders, and examined them day after
day, in all directions of the wind, at last the horrible idea became a
certain fact,--that the surface of the lake was slowly sinking.
"The poor princess nearly went out of the little mind she had. It was
awful to her, to see the lake which she loved more than any living
thing, lie dying before her eyes. It sank away, slowly vanishing. The
tops of rocks that had never been seen before began to appear far down
in the clear water. Before long, they were dry in the sun. It was
fearful to think of the mud that would lie baking and festering full of
lovely creatures dying, and ugly creatures coming to life, like the
unmaking of a world. And how hot the sun would be without any lake! She
could not bear to swim in it, and began to pine away. Her life seemed
bound up with it, and, ever as the lake sank, she pined. People said
she would not live an hour after the lake was gone. But she never
cried.
"Proclamation was made to all the kingdom, that whosoever should
discover the cause of the lake's decrease would be rewarded after a
princely fashion. Hum-Drum and Kopy-Keck applied themselves to their
physics and metaphysics, but in vain. No one came forward to suggest a
cause.
"Now the fact was, that the old princess was at the root of the
mischief. When she heard that her niece found more pleasure in the
water than any one else had out of it, she went into a rage, and cursed
herself for her want of foresight.
"'But,' said, 'I will soon set all right. The king and the people shall
die of thirst; their brains shall boil and frizzle in their skulls,
before I shall lose my revenge.
"And she laughed a ferocious laugh, that made the hairs on the back of
her black cat, stand erect with terror.
"Then she went to an old chest in the room, and, opening it, took out
what looked like apiece of dried sea-weed. This she threw into a tub of
water. Then she threw some powder into the water, and stirred it with
her bare arm, muttering over it words of hideous sound, and yet more
hideous import. Then she set the tub aside, and took from her chest a
huge bunch of a hundred rusty keys, that clattered in her shaking
hands. Then she sat down and proceeded to oil them all. Before she had
finished, out from the tub, the water of which had kept a slow motion
ever since she had ceased stirring it, came the head and half the body
of a huge gray snake. But the witch did not look round. It grew out of
the tub, waving itself backwards and forwards with a slow, horizontal
motion, till it reached the princess, when it laid its head upon her
shoulder, and gave a low hiss in her ear. She started--but with joy;
and, seeing the head resting on her shoulder, drew it towards her and
kissed it. Then she drew it all out of the tub, and wound it round her
body. It was one of those dreadful creatures which few have ever
beheld,--the White Snakes of Darkness.
"Then she took the keys and went down cellar; and, as she unlocked the
door, she said to herself:--
"'This _is_ worth living for'!
"Locking the door behind her, she descended a few steps into the
cellar, and crossing it, unlocked another door into a dark, narrow
passage. This also she locked behind her, and descended a few more
steps. If any one had followed the witch-princess, he would have heard
her unlock exactly one hundred doors, and descend a few steps after
unlocking each. When she had unlocked the last, she entered a vast
cave, the roof of which was supported by huge natural pillars of rock.
Now this roof was the underside of the bottom of the lake.
"She then untwined the snake from her body and held it by the tail high
above her. The hideous creature stretched up its head towards the roof
of the cavern, which it was just able to reach. It then began to move
its head backwards and forwards, with a slow, oscillating motion, as if
looking for something At the same moment, the witch began to walk round
and round the cavern, coming nearer to the centre every circuit; while
the head of the snake described the same path over the roof that she
did over the floor. for she held it up still. And still it kept slowly
oscillating. Round and round the cavern they went thus, ever lessening
the circuit, till, at last, the snake made a sudden dart, and clung
fast to the roof with its mouth. 'That's right, my beauty?' cried the
princess; 'drain it dry.'
"She let it go, left it hanging, and sat down on a great stone, with
her black cat, who had followed her all around the cave, by her side.
Then she began to knit, and mutter awful words. The snake hung like a
huge leech, sucking at the stone; the cat stood with his back arched,
and his tail like a piece of cable, looking up at the snake; and the
old woman sat and knitted and muttered. Seven days and seven nights
they sat thus; when suddenly the serpent dropped from the roof, as if
exhausted, and shrivelled up like a piece of dried sea-weed on the
floor. The witch started to her feet, picked it up, put it in her
pocket, and looked up at the roof. One drop of water was trembling on
the spot where the snake had been sucking. As soon as she saw that, she
turned and fled, followed by her cat. She shut the door in a terrible
hurry, locked it, and, having muttered some frightful words, sped to
the next, which also she locked and muttered over: and so with all the
hundred doors, till she arrived in her own cellar. There she sat down
on the floor ready to faint, but listening with malicious delight to
the rushing of the water, which she could hear distinctly through all
the hundred doors.
"But this was not enough. Now that she had tasted revenge, she lost her
patience. Without further measures, the lake would be too long in
disappearing. So the next night, with the last shred of the dying old
moon rising, she took some of the water in which she had revived the
snake, put it in a bottle, and set out, accompanied by her cat. Ere she
returned, she had made the entire circuit of the lake, muttering
fearful words as she crossed every stream, and casting into it some of
the water out of her bottle. When she had finished the circuit, she
muttered yet again, and flung a handful of the water towards the moon.
Every spring in the country ceased to throb and bubble, dying away like
the pulse of a dying man. The next day there was no sound of falling
water to be heard along the borders of the lake. The very courses were
dry; and the mountains showed no silvery streaks down their dark sides.
And not alone had the fountains of mother Earth ceased to flow; for all
the babies throughout the country were crying dreadfully,--only without
tears."