ed for another hour, his thirst became
intolerable again; and, when he looked at his bottle, he saw that
there were only five or six drops left in it, and he could not venture
to drink. And, as he was hanging the flask to his belt again, he saw
a little dog lying on the rocks, gasping for breath--just as Hans had
seen it on the day of his ascent. And Gluck stopped and looked at it
and then at the Golden River, not five hundred yards above him; and he
thought of the dwarf's words, "that no one could succeed, except in
his first attempt"; and he tried to pass the dog, but it whined
piteously, and Gluck stopped again. "Poor beastie!" said Gluck: "it'll
be dead when I come down again, if I don't help it." Then he looked
closer and closer at it, and its eye turned on him so mournfully that
he could not stand it. "Confound the King and his gold too," said
Gluck; and he opened the flask, and poured all the water into the
dog's mouth.

The dog sprang up and stood on its hind legs. Its tail disappeared,
its ears became long, longer, silky, golden; its nose became very red,
its eyes became very twinkling; in three seconds the dog was gone, and
before Gluck stood his old acquaintance, the King of the Golden River.

"Thank you," said the monarch; "but don't be frightened, it's all
right"; for Gluck showed manifest symptoms of consternation at this
unlooked-for reply to his last observation. "Why didn't you come
before," continued the dwarf, "instead of sending me those rascally
brothers of yours, for me to have the trouble of turning into stones?
Very hard stones they make too."

"Oh dear me!" said Gluck; "have you really been so cruel?"

"Cruel!" said the dwarf, "they poured unholy water into my stream; do
you suppose I'm going to allow that?"

"Why," said Gluck, "I am sure, sir--your Majesty, I mean--they got the
water out of the church font."

"Very probably," replied the dwarf; "but," and his countenance grew
stern as he spoke, "the water which has been refused to the cry of
the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every
saint in heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy
is holy, though it had been defiled with corpses."

So saying, the dwarf stooped and plucked a lily that grew at his feet.
On its white leaves there hung three drops of clear dew. And the dwarf
shook them into the flask which Gluck held in his hand. "Cast these
into the river," he said, "and descend on the other sid