“The time is favorable,” muttered the little man, “my children are hungry, to-night.”  And, turning to Koerg, he continued:  “Take the gift of Klaus and go down into the sea.  A crowd will swarm upon you, as persistent and voracious as any in this upper world.  Ask for the wonder-mill, and sacrifice your treasures only in its exchange.  I will await you here.”

A spell immediately enwrapped the senses of Koerg.  Calm and fearless, he descended into the deep, floating dreamily downward to the glittering caves from whence, exactly as the elf had depicted, swarmed forth troops of mermen and mermaids, with eyes and arms voraciously extended towards the bread and the pudding he held tightly clutched to his breast.  But Koerg, spurred on by the elf, resisted them all, nor parted with a single crumb till the wonder-mill lay safe in his embrace.  The little man stood waiting on the brink.

“I dedicate this to the honest poor,” he said, softly.  “Yes, Koerg, it is yours.  Ask of it what you will, and it shall never fail you—­gold, silver, hundreds of loaves and puddings.  But—­” and here the little man paused, a shudder quivered through his frame, and he continued, solemnly—­“remember, that by no hand but yours can it be controlled.  Guard it carefully, for the day you part with it your portion shall be ashes, and mine annihilation.”

When Koerg dared lift his eyes the elf had disappeared.

Rahel sat at home with the children, weeping.  She knew well the heart of her brother Klaus, and how vain would be Koerg’s last effort to save them from starvation.  A step sounded on the path without.  Rahel and the babes stopped to listen.  It was not dull and heavy as they had expected, but blithe as the jingle of sleigh-bells, and, in a second, Koerg burst in upon them, dimpling all over with merry laughter.  Rahel regarded him, amazed.

“You bring no bread to our starving babes, and yet you laugh,” she said.  “Oh, Koerg!  Koerg! trouble has made you mad!”

Still chuckling he slipped the wonder-mill from beneath his coat and said, softly: 

“Hush, Rahel!  A geist has been with me to-night.  I have brought endless fortune from the depths of the sea.”  And, plump in the eyes of his astonished wife, he began turning out loaves and puddings with such a gusto that the room was soon filled, and Rahel fain to implore him to cease his elfish work.

From that night, just as the little man had said, riches unlimited came to the house of Koerg.  No treasure too great for the mill to produce; and, though the woodchopper strove hard at secrecy, its fame spread far and wide from the mountains back to the sea, and folks flocked by thousands to view the magic engine that Koerg had fished up from the the ocean’s depths.  And though, always good humoredly, he tested its powers and loaded his guests with princely gifts, yet he rested night after night more uneasily upon his pillow, remembering the solemn words of the geist: