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 inside, even darker than in the tunnel, and it was
really very close quarters! But there the steadfast little Tin-soldier
lay full length, shouldering his gun.

Up and down swam the fish, then he made the most dreadful contortions,
and became suddenly quite still. Then it was as if a flash of
lightning had passed through him; the daylight streamed in, and a
voice exclaimed, 'Why, here is the little Tin-soldier!' The fish had
been caught, taken to market, sold, and brought into the kitchen,
where the cook had cut it open with a great knife. She took up the
soldier bet