ll 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!"