"I'm afloat! I'm afloat!"
And the little boat bumped against the stone.
"Princess!" repeated the prince, encouraged by seeing her wide awake
and looking eagerly at the water.
"Well?" said she, without looking round.
"Your papa promised that you should look at me, and you haven't looked
at me once."
"Did he? Then I suppose I must. But I am so sleepy!"
"Sleep then, darling, and don't mind me," said the poor prince.
"Really, you are very good," replied the princess. "I think I will go
to sleep again."
"Just give me a glass of wine and a biscuit first," said the prince,
very humbly.
"With all my heart," said the princess, and gaped as she said it.
She got the wine and the biscuit, however, and leaning over the side of
the boat towards him, was compelled to look at him.
"Why, prince," she said, "you don't look well! Are you sure you don't
mind it?"
"Not a bit," answered he, feeling very faint in deed. "Only I shall die
before it is of any use to you, unless I have something to eat."
"There, then," said she, holding out the wine to him.
"Ah! you must feed me. I dare not move my hands. The water would run
away directly."
"Good gracious!" said the princess; and she began at once to feed him
with bits of biscuit and sips of wine.
As she fed him, he contrived to kiss the tips of her fingers now and
then. She did not seem to mind it, one way or the other. But the prince
felt better.
"Now for your own sake, princess," said he, "I cannot let you go to
sleep. You must sit and look at me, else I shall not be able to keep
up."
"Well, I will do anything I can to oblige you," answered she, with
condescension; and, sitting down, she did look at him, and kept looking
at him with wonderful steadiness, considering all things.
The sun went down, and the moon rose, and, gush after gush, the waters
were rising up the prince's body. They were up to his waist now.
"Why can't we go and have a swim?" said the princess. "There seems to
be water enough just about here."
"I shall never swim more," said the prince.
"Oh, I forgot," said the princess, and was silent.
So the water grew and grew, and rose up and up on the prince. And the
princess sat and looked at him. She fed him now and then. The night
wore on. The waters rose and rose. The moon rose likewise higher and
higher, and shone full on the face of the dying prince. The water was
up to his neck.
"Will you kiss me, princess?" said he, feebly. The nonchalance was all
gone now.
"Yes, I will," answered the princess, and kissed him with a long,
sweet, cold kiss.
"Now," said he, with a sigh of content, "I die happy."
He did not speak again. The princess gave him some wine for the last
time: he was past eating. Then she sat down again, and looked at him.
The water rose and rose. It touched his chin. It touched his lower lip.
It touched between his lips. He shut them hard to keep it out. The
princess began to feel strange. It touched his upper lip. He breathed
through his nostrils. The princess looked wild. It covered his
nostrils. Her eyes looked scared, and shone strange in the moonlight.
His head fell back; the water closed over it, and the bubbles of his
last breath bubbled up through the water. The princess gave a shriek,
and sprang into the lake.
She laid hold first of one leg, and then of the other, and pulled and
tugged, but she could not move either. She stopped to take breath, and
that made her think that he could not get any breath. She was frantic.
She got hold of him, and held his head above the water, which was
possible now his hands were no longer on the hole. But it was of no
use, for he was past breathing.
Love and water brought back all her strength. She got under the water,
and pulled and pulled with her whole might, till at last she got one
leg out. The other easily followed. How she got him into the boat she
never could tell; but when she did, she fainted away. Coming to
herself, she seized the oars, kept herself steady as best she could,
and rowed and rowed, though she had never rowed before. Round rocks,
and over shallows, and through mud she rowed, till she got to the
landing-stairs of the palace. By this time her people were on the
shore, for they had heard her shriek. She made them carry the prince to
her own room, and lay him in her bed, and light a fire, and send for
the doctors.
"But the lake, your highness!" said the chamberlain, who, roused by the
noise, came in, in his nightcap.
"Go and drown yourself in it!" she said.
This was the last rudeness of which the princess was ever guilty; and
one must allow that she had good cause to feel provoked with the lord
chamberlain.
Had it been the king himself, he would have fared no better. But both
he and the queen were fast asleep. And the chamberlain went back to his
bed. Somehow, the doctors never came. So the princess and her old nurse
were left with the prince. But the old nurse was a wise woman, and knew
what to do.
They tried everything for a long time without success. The princess was
nearly distracted between hope and fear, but she tried on and on, one
thing after another, and everything over and over again.
At last, when they had all but given it up, just as the sun rose, the
prince opened his eyes.