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.

XII

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 insight, perceived that there was more in the prince’s solicitation than met the ear.  He felt likewise that no one could tell whence a solution of the present difficulties might arise.  So he granted the prince’s prayer to be made shoeblack to the princess.  It was rather cunning in the prince to request such an easy post, for the princess could not possibly soil as many shoes as other princesses.

He soon learned all that could be told about the princess.  He went nearly distracted; but after roaming about the lake for days, and diving in every depth that remained, all that he could do was to put an extra polish on the dainty pair of boots that was never called for.

For the princess kept her room, with the curtains drawn to shut out the dying lake, but could not shut it out of her mind for a moment.  It haunted her imagination so that she felt as if the lake were her soul, drying up within her, first to mud, then to madness and death.  She thus brooded over the change, with all its dreadful accompaniments, till she was nearly distracted.  As for the prince, she had forgotten him.  However much she had enjoyed his company in the water, she did not care for him without it.  But she seemed to have forgotten her father and mother too.

The lake went on sinking.  Small slimy spots began to appear, which glittered steadily amidst the changeful shine of the water.  These grew to broad patches of mud, which widened and spread, with rocks here and there, and floundering fishes and crawling eels swarming.  The people went everywhere catching these, and looking for anything that might have dropped from the royal boats.