as she saw that,
she turned and fled, followed by her cat. Shutting the door in a
terrible hurry, she locked it, and having muttered some frightful
words, sped to the next, which also she locked and muttered over; and
so with all the hundred doors, till she arrived in her own cellar.
Then she sat down on the floor ready to faint, but listening with
malicious delight to the rushing of the water, which she could hear
distinctly through all the hundred doors.

But this was not enough. Now that she had tasted revenge, she lost her
patience. Without further measures, the lake would be too long in
disappearing. So the next night, with the last shred of the dying old
moon rising, she took some of the water in which she had revived the
snake, put it in a bottle, and set out, accompanied by her cat. Before
morning she had made the entire circuit of the lake, muttering fearful
words as she crossed every stream, and casting into it some of the
water out of her bottle. When she had finished the circuit she
muttered yet again, and flung a handful of water towards the moon.
Thereupon every spring in the country ceased to throb and bubble, dying
away like the pulse of a dying man. The next day there was no sound of
falling water to be heard along the borders of the lake. The very
courses were dry; and the mountains showed no silvery streaks down
their dark sides. And not alone had the fountains of mother Earth
ceased to flow; for all the babies throughout the country were crying
dreadfully--only without tears.

12. Where Is the Prince?

Never since the night when the princess left him so abruptly had the
prince had a single interview with her. He had seen her once or twice
in the lake; but as far as he could discover, she had not been in it
any more at night. He had sat and sung, and looked in vain for his
Nereid; while she, like a true Nereid, was wasting away with her lake,
sinking as it sank, withering as it dried. When at length he
discovered the change that was taking place in the level of the water,
he was in great alarm and perplexity. He could not tell whether the
lake was dying because the lady had forsaken it; or whether the lady
would not come because the lake had begun to sink. But he resolved to
know so much at least.

He disguised himself, and, going to the palace, requested to see the
lord chamberlain. His appearance at once gained his request; and the
lord chamberlain, being a man of some insi