When it was over, two little street boys came along.

'Just look!' cried one. 'Here is a Tin-soldier! He shall sail up and
down in a boat!'

So they made a little boat out of newspaper, put the Tin-soldier in it,
and made him sail up and down the gutter; both the boys ran along beside
him, clapping their hands. What great waves there were in the gutter,
and what a swift current! The paper-boat tossed up and down, and in the
middle of the stream it went so quick that the Tin-soldier trembled; but
he remained steadfast, showed no emotion, looked straight in front
of him, shouldering his gun. All at once the boat passed under a long
tunnel that was as dark as his box had been.

'Where can I be coming now?' he wondered. 'Oh, dear! This is the black
imp's fault! Ah, if only the little lady were sitting beside me in the
boat, it might be twice as dark for all I should care!'

Suddenly there came along a great water-rat that lived in the tunnel.

'Have you a passport?' asked the rat. 'Out with your passport!'

But the Tin-soldier was silent, and grasped his gun more firmly.

The boat sped on, and the rat behind it. Ugh! how he showed his teeth,
as he cried to the chips of wood and straw: 'Hold him, hold him! he has
not paid the toll! He has not shown his passport!'

But the current became swifter and stronger. The Tin-soldier could
already see daylight where the tunnel ended; but in his ears there
sounded a roaring enough to frighten any brave man. Only think! at the
end of the tunnel the gutter discharged itself into a great canal; that
would be just as dangerous for him as it would be for us to go down a
waterfall.

Now he was so near to it that he could not hold on any longer. On went
the boat, the poor Tin-soldier keeping himself as stiff as he could: no
one should say of him afterwards that he had flinched. The boat whirled
three, four times round, and became filled to the brim with water: it
began to sink! The Tin-soldier was standing up to his neck in water, and
deeper and deeper sank the boat, and softer and softer grew the paper;
now the water was over his head. He was thinking of the pretty little
Dancer, whose face he should never see again, and there sounded in his
ears, over and over again:

'Forward, forward, soldier bold!
Death's before thee, grim and cold!'

The paper came in two, and the soldier fell--but at that moment he was
swallowed by a great fish.

Oh! how dark it was