understood him. Then it
flashed upon Curdie's mind that perhaps this was the companion the
princess had promised him. For the princess did so many things
differently from what anybody looked for! Lina was no beauty
certainly, but already, the first night, she had saved his life.

'Come along, Lina,' he said, 'we want water.'

She put her nose to the earth, and after snuffing for a moment, darted
off in a straight line. Curdie followed. The ground was so uneven,
that after losing sight of her many times, at last he seemed to have
lost her altogether. In a few minutes, however, he came upon her
waiting for him. Instantly she darted off again. After he had lost and
found her again many times, he found her the last time lying beside a
great stone. As soon as he came up she began scratching at it with her
paws. When he had raised it an inch or two, she shoved in first her
nose and then her teeth, and lifted with all the might of her neck.

When at length between them they got it up, there was a beautiful
little well. He filled his cap with the clearest and sweetest water,
and drank. Then he gave to Lina, and she drank plentifully. Next he
washed her wounds very carefully. And as he did so, he noted how much
the bareness of her neck added to the strange repulsiveness of her
appearance. Then he bethought him of the goatskin wallet his mother
had given him, and taking it from his shoulders, tried whether it would
do to make a collar of for the poor animal. He found there was just
enough, and the hair so similar in colour to Lina's, that no one could
suspect it of having grown somewhere else.

He took his knife, ripped up the seams of the wallet, and began trying
the skin to her neck. It was plain she understood perfectly what he
wished, for she endeavoured to hold her neck conveniently, turning it
this way and that while he contrived, with his rather scanty material,
to make the collar fit. As his mother had taken care to provide him
with needles and thread, he soon had a nice gorget ready for her. He
laced it on with one of his boot laces, which its long hair covered.
Poor Lina looked much better in it. Nor could any one have called it a
piece of finery. If ever green eyes with a yellow light in them looked
grateful, hers did.

As they had no longer any bag to carry them in, Curdie and Lina now ate
what was left of the provisions. Then they set out again upon their
journey. For seven days it lasted. T