eeping
and she has an answer for them all. You must go to her and ask her to
help you."

So the sailor thanked the good fisherman and his wife, and set out to
walk the hundred leagues to the house of the Witch of the Sands. His
path lay along a desolate and lonely shore, on whose rocky beaches the
wooden bones of old wrecks lay rotting, half buried in stones and weed.
Just as the third day's sun was sinking in the shining waters, the
sailor arrived at the Witch's dwelling.

The Witch made her home in a deserted old ship, which a storm of long
ago had cast far up the sands. As for the Witch herself, she was a woman
so old that the sailor thought she surely must have been living when the
moon and the stars were made. A fringe of sea-shells circled the crown
of her high hat, and round her wrists were bracelets of pearly
periwinkles.

Just as the sailor approached the Witch's door, a young fur seal, who
had been basking in a little pool left along the beach by the tide,
hastened out of his puddle, and running swiftly toward him on his
flappers, nuzzled his hand with his sleek, wet head, just like a young
dog.

"Down, Neptune, down!" cried the witch shrilly.

"Good evening, madam," said the sailor in his politest manner.

"You are the third person who has come here to ask me the question you
are going to ask," screamed the Witch of the Sands, whose magic powers
had revealed to her the reason of the sailor's coming. "I know you! You
are the youngest son. Your two brothers have been here to ask me the way
under the sea, and I told them; but bless me, they have n't come back
yet. Just like young men to forget an old woman's warning. I've a good
mind not to tell you the way to the under-waters; indeed, I would n't if
you were n't a sailor and a child of the sea. Yes, I can show you the
road to under the sea; but you must not ask me about the emerald,
because I don't know where it is myself. It was in the Land of the Dawn,
and that's the last I heard of it! When you do get to the under-waters,
don't forget that. You'll have to hurry back like the wind, for the year
which the King gave your father is almost gone. Don't ask me questions!
I know you are going to ask one, because I'm not a man; and I know what
you are going to ask, because I'm a witch."

And the strange old lady laughed and, putting her hands on her waist,
swayed so violently from side to side that the sea-shells on her hat
rattled and clicked. Then, after a