’Wife and babe below the river,
       Twice will I come and then come never.’

“Without another word she turned and went slowly past John and down the stairs.”

“I know that, anyhow,” Honoria interrupted.  “That’s ’East of the Sun and West of the Moon,’ or else it’s the Princess whose brother was changed into a Roebuck, or else—­” But George flicked a pebble at her, and Taffy went on, warming more and more to the story:—­

“In the morning, when the Prince woke, his second wife saw his pillow on the side farthest from her, and it was wet.  ‘Husband,’ she said, ‘you have been weeping to-night.’  ‘Well,’ said he, ’that is queer, though, for I haven’t wept since I was a boy.  It’s true, though, that I had a miserable dream.’  But when he tried to remember it, he could not.

“The same thing happened on the second night, only the dead wife said:” 

      ’Wife and babe below the river,
       Once will I come and then come never.’

“And again in the morning there was a mark on the pillow where her wet hand had rested.  But the Prince in the morning could remember nothing.  On the third night she came and said:” 

      ’Wife and babe below the river,
       Now I am gone and gone for ever,’

“And went down the stairs with such a reproachful look at John that his heart melted and he ran after her.  But at the outer door a flash of lightning met him, and such a storm broke over the palace and city as had never been before and never will be again.

“John heard screams, and the noise of doors banging and feet running throughout the palace; he turned back and met the Prince, his master, coming downstairs with his child in his arms.  The lightning stroke had killed his second wife where she lay.  John followed him out into the streets, where the people were running to and fro, and through the whirling sand to the ford which crossed the creek a mile above the city.  And there, as they stepped into the water, a woman rose before John, with a child in her arms, and said:  ‘Carry us.’  The Prince, who was leading, did not see.  John took them on his back, but they were heavy because of the iron chains and weights on their ankles, and the sands sank under him.  Then, by-and-by, the first wife put her child into John’s arms and said, ‘Save him,’ and slipped off his back into the water.  ‘What sound was that?’ asked the Prince.  ‘That was my heart cracking,’ said John.  So they went on till the sand rose half-way to their knees.  Then the Prince stopped and put his child into John’s arms.  ‘Save him,’ he said, and fell forward on his face; and John’s heart cracked again.  But he went forward in the darkness until the water rose to his waist, and the sand to his knees.  He was close to the farther shore now, but could not reach it unless he dropped one of the children; and this he would not do.  He bent forward, holding out