‘But you will have to pay me, too,’ said the witch, ’and it is no trifle that I demand.  You have the most beautiful voice of any at the bottom of the sea, and I daresay that you think you will fascinate him with it; but you must give me that voice; I will have the best you possess in return for my precious potion!  I have to mingle my own blood with it so as to make it as sharp as a two-edged sword.’

‘But if you take my voice,’ said the little mermaid, ‘what have I left?’

‘Your beautiful form,’ said the witch, ’your gliding gait, and your speaking eyes; with these you ought surely to be able to bewitch a human heart.  Well! have you lost courage?  Put out your little tongue, and I will cut it off in payment for the powerful draught.’

‘Let it be done,’ said the little mermaid, and the witch put on her caldron to brew the magic potion.  ‘There is nothing like cleanliness,’ said she, as she scoured the pot with a bundle of snakes; then she punctured her breast and let the black blood drop into the caldron, and the steam took the most weird shapes, enough to frighten any one.  Every moment the witch threw new ingredients into the pot, and when it boiled the bubbling was like the sound of crocodiles weeping.  At last the potion was ready and it looked like the clearest water.

‘There it is,’ said the witch, and thereupon she cut off the tongue of the little mermaid, who was dumb now and could neither sing nor speak.

‘If the polyps should seize you, when you go back through my wood,’ said the witch, ’just drop a single drop of this liquid on them, and their arms and fingers will burst into a thousand pieces.’  But the little mermaid had no need to do this, for at the mere sight of the bright liquid, which sparkled in her hand like a shining star, they drew back in terror.  So she soon got past the wood, the bog, and the eddying whirlpools.

She saw her father’s palace; the lights were all out in the great ballroom, and no doubt all the household was asleep, but she did not dare to go in now that she was dumb and about to leave her home for ever.  She felt as if her heart would break with grief.  She stole into the garden and plucked a flower from each of her sisters’ plots, wafted with her hand countless kisses towards the palace, and then rose up through the dark blue water.

[Illustration:  But the little mermaid had no need to do this, for at the mere sight of the bright liquid which sparkled in her hand like a shining star, they drew back in terror.]

The sun had not risen when she came in sight of the prince’s palace and landed at the beautiful marble steps.  The moon was shining bright and clear.  The little mermaid drank the burning, stinging draught, and it was like a sharp, two-edged sword running through her tender frame; she fainted away and lay as if she were dead.  When the sun rose on the sea she woke up and became conscious of a sharp pang, but just in front of her stood the handsome