bones, and he was so
terrified that he could not answer.

"For the third and last time, are you ready to pay the price?" asked
the fairy, as he flung the harp behind him and turned to depart.

When the dwarf saw him going he thought of the little princess in the
lonely moor, and his courage came back, and he answered bravely:

"Yes, I am ready."

The water-steeds, hearing his answer, and snorting with rage, struck
the shore with their pounding hoofs.

"Back to your waves!" cried the little harper; and as he ran his
fingers across his lyre, the frightened steeds drew back into the
waters.

"What is the price?" asked the dwarf.

"Your right eye," said the fairy; and before the dwarf could say a
word, the fairy scooped out the eye with his finger, and put it into
his pocket.

The dwarf suffered most terrible agony; but he resolved to bear it for
the sake of the little princess. Then the fairy sat down on a rock at
the edge of the sea, and, after striking a few notes, he began to play
the "Strains of Slumber."

The sound crept along the waters, and the steeds, so ferocious a
moment before, became perfectly still. They had no longer any motion
of their own, and they floated on the top of the tide like foam before
a breeze.

"Now," said the fairy, as he led the dwarf's horse to the edge of the
tide.

The dwarf urged the horse into the water, and once out of his depth,
the old horse struck out boldly for the island. The sleeping
water-steeds drifted helplessly against him, and in a short time he
reached the island safely, and he neighed joyously as his hoofs
touched solid ground.

The dwarf rode on and on, until he came to a bridle-path, and
following this, it led him up through winding lanes, bordered with
golden furze that filled the air with fragrance, and brought him to
the summit of the green hills that girdled and looked down on the
Mystic Lake. Here the horse stopped of his own accord, and the dwarf's
heart beat quickly as his eye rested on the lake, that, clipped round
by the ring of hills, seemed in the breezeless and sunlit air--

"As still as death,
And as bright as life can be."

After gazing at it for a long time, he dismounted, and lay at his ease
in the pleasant grass. Hour after hour passed, but no change came over
the face of the waters, and when the night fell sleep closed the
eyelids of the dwarf.

The song of the lark awoke him in the early morni