at and looked at him. She fed him now and then. The night
wore on. The waters rose and rose. The moon rose likewise higher and
higher, and shone full on the face of the dying prince. The water was
up to his neck.

"Will you kiss me, princess?" said he, feebly.

The nonchalance was all gone now.

"Yes, I will," answered the princess, and kissed him with a long,
sweet, cold kiss.

"Now," said he, with a sigh of content, "I die happy."

He did not speak again. The princess gave him some wine for the last
time: he was past eating. Then she sat down again, and looked at him.
The water rose and rose. It touched his chin. It touched his lower
lip. It touched between his lips. He shut them hard to keep it out.
The princess began to feel strange. It touched his upper lip. He
breathed through his nostrils. The princess looked wild. It covered
his nostrils. Her eyes looked scared, and shone strange in the
moonlight. His head fell back; the water closed over it, and the
bubbles of his last breath bubbled up through the water. The princess
gave a shriek, and sprang into the lake.

She laid hold first of one leg, and then of the other, and pulled and
tugged, but she could not move either. She stopped to take breath, and
that made her think that HE could not get any breath. She was frantic.
She got hold of him, and held his head above the water, which was
possible now his hands were no longer on the hole. But it was of no
use, for he was past breathing.

Love and water brought back all her strength. She got under the water,
and pulled and pulled with her whole might, till at last she got one
leg out. The other easily followed. How she got him into the boat she
never could tell; but when she did, she fainted away. Coming to
herself, she seized the oars, kept herself steady as best she could,
and rowed and rowed, though she had never rowed before. Round rocks,
and over shallows, and through mud she rowed, till she got to the
landing-stairs of the palace. By this time her people were on the
shore, for they had heard her shriek. She made them carry the prince
to her own room, and lay him in her bed, and light a fire, and send for
the doctors.

"But the lake, your Highness!" said the chamberlain, who, roused by the
noise, came in, in his nightcap.

"Go and drown yourself in it!" she said.

This was the last rudeness of which the princess was ever guilty; and
one must allow that she had good cause to