And with that the foolish Kingfisher turned her course downward, with such mad, headlong speed that she had scarcely time to feel what terrible, increasing heat shot from the sun’s rays, until she was so close upon him that it was too late to escape.  Oh, but that was a dreadful moment!  The feathers on her poor little breast were scorched and set afire, and she seemed in danger not only of spoiling her beautiful new blue dress but of being burned into a wretched little cinder.  Horribly frightened at her danger, the Kingfisher turned once more, but this time toward the rolling waters which covered the earth.  Down, down she swooped, until with the hiss of burning feathers she splashed into the cold wetness, putting out the fire which threatened to consume her.  Once, twice, thrice, she dipped into the grateful coolness, flirting the drops from her blue plumage, now alas! sadly scorched.

When the pain of her burns was somewhat relieved she had time to think what next she should do.  She longed for rest, for refuge, for Father Noah’s gentle, caressing hand to which she had grown accustomed during those stormy weeks of companionship in the ark.  But where was Father Noah?  Where was the ark?  On all the rolling sea of water there was no movement of life, no sign of any human presence.  Then the Kingfisher remembered her errand, and how carelessly she had performed it.  She had been bidden to return quickly; but she had wasted many hours—­she could not tell how many—­in her forgetful flight.  And now she was to be punished indeed, if she could not find her master and the ark of refuge.

The poor Kingfisher looked wildly about.  She fluttered here and there, backward and forward, over the weary stretch of waves, crying piteously for her master.  He did not answer; there was no ark to be found.  The sun set and the night came on, but still she sought eagerly from east to west, from north to south, always in vain.  She could never find what she had so carelessly lost.

The truth is that during her absence the Dove, who had done her errand faithfully, returned at last with the olive leaf which told of one spot upon the earth’s surface at last uncovered by the waves.  Then the ark, blown hither and thither by the same storm which had driven the Kingfisher to fly upward into the ether-blue, had drifted far and far to Mount Ararat, where it ran aground.  And Father Noah, disembarking with his family and all the assembled animals, had broken up the ark, intending there to build him a house out of the materials from which it was made.  But this was many, many leagues from the place where the poor Kingfisher, lonely and frightened, hovered about, crying piteously for her master.

And even when the waters dried away, uncovering the earth in many places, so that the Kingfisher could alight and build herself a nest, she was never happy nor content, but to this day flies up and down the water-ways of the world piping sadly, looking eagerly for her dear master and for some traces of the ark which sheltered her.  And the reflection which she makes in the water below shows an azure-blue body, like a reflection of the sky above, with some of the breast-feathers scorched to a rusty red.  And now you know how it all came about.