The princess's 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; till 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 till now, 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 soon lie there 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 any more, 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. Not even they could 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
anyone else out of it, she went into a rage, and cursed herself for her
want of foresight.
"But," said she, "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 will 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 a piece of dried seaweed. 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 the 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 on 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 to her 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. She
locked this also behind her, and descended a few more steps. If anyone
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
under side 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 kept holding it up. And still it kept
slowly oscillating. Round and round the cavern they went, ever
lessening the circuit, till at last the snake made a sudden dart, and
clung 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, which had followed her all round 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
remained thus; when suddenly the serpent dropped from the roof as if
exhausted, and shrivelled up till it was again like a piece of dried
seaweed. 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. Shutting the door in a terrible
hurry, she 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. Before
morning 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 water towards the moon. Thereupon
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.