legs.

"You will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But
all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being
they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of
movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly. Every step you take,
however, will be as if you were treading upon sharp knives and as if the
blood must flow. If you will bear all this, I will help you."

"Yes, I will," said the little princess in a trembling voice, as she
thought of the prince and the immortal soul.

"But think again," said the witch, "for when once your shape has become
like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You will never return
through the water to your sisters or to your father's palace again. And
if you do not win the love of the prince, so that he is willing to
forget his father and mother for your sake and to love you with his
whole soul and allow the priest to join your hands that you may be man
and wife, then you will never have an immortal soul. The first morning
after he marries another, your heart will break and you will become foam
on the crest of the waves."

"I will do it," said the little mermaid, and she became pale as death.

"But I must be paid, also," said the witch, "and it is not a trifle that
I ask. You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths
of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince
with it. But this voice you must give to me. The best thing you possess
will I have as the price of my costly draft, which must be mixed with my
own blood so that it may be as sharp as a two-edged sword."

"But if you take away my voice," said the little mermaid, "what is left
for me?"

"Your beautiful form, your graceful walk, and your expressive eyes.
Surely with these you can enchain a man's heart. Well, have you lost
your courage? Put out your little tongue, that I may cut it off as my
payment; then you shall have the powerful draft."

"It shall be," said the little mermaid.

Then the witch placed her caldron on the fire, to prepare the magic
draft.

"Cleanliness is a good thing," said she, scouring the vessel with snakes
which she had tied together in a large knot. Then she pricked herself in
the breast and let the black blood drop into the caldron. The steam that
rose twisted itself into such horrible shapes that no one could look at
them without fear. Every moment the witch threw a new ingredient into
the