As soon as the sorceress saw some one approaching, she stooped over the child, took him up board and all in her arms, and carried him into the cave.  Then she said sternly: 

“If you move, little one, I will flog you.  Now let me tie you.”

“Don’t tie me,” said the child, “I will be good and lie still.”

“Stretch yourself out,” ordered the old woman, and tied the child with a rope to the board.  “If you are quiet, I’ll give you a honey-cake by-and-bye, and let you play with the young chickens.”

The child was quiet, and a soft smile of delight and hope sparkled in his pretty eyes.  His little hand caught the dress of the old woman, and with the sweetest coaxing tone, which God bestows on the innocent voices of children, he said: 

“I will be as still as a mouse, and no one shall know that I am here; but if you give me the honeycake you will untie me for a little, and let me go to Uarda.”

“She is ill!—­what do you want there?”

“I would take her the cake,” said the child, and his eyes glistened with tears.

The old woman touched the child’s chin with her finger, and some mysterious power prompted her to bend over him to kiss him.  But before her lips had touched his face she turned away, and said, in a hard tone: 

“Lie still! by and bye we will see.”  Then she stooped, and threw a brown sack over the child.  She went back into the open air, greeted Nemu, entertained him with milk, bread and honey, gave him news of the girl who had been run over, for he seemed to take her misfortune very much to heart, and finally asked: 

“What brings you here?  The Nile was still narrow when you last found your way to me, and now it has been falling some time.

[This is the beginning of November.  The Nile begins slowly to rise early in June; between the 15th and 20th of July it suddenly swells rapidly, and in the first half of October, not, as was formerly supposed, at the end of September, the inundation reaches its highest level.  Heinrich Barth established these data beyond dispute.  After the water has begun to sink it rises once more in October and to a higher level than before.  Then it soon falls, at first slowly, but by degrees quicker and quicker.]

Are you sent by your mistress, or do you want my help?  All the world is alike.  No one goes to see any one else unless he wants to make use of him.  What shall I give you?”

“I want nothing,” said the dwarf, “but—­”

“You are commissioned by a third person,” said the witch, laughing.  “It is the same thing.  Whoever wants a thing for some one else only thinks of his own interest.”

“May be,” said Nemu.  “At any rate your words show that you have not grown less wise since I saw you last—­and I am glad of it, for I want your advice.”

“Advice is cheap.  What is going on out there?” Nemu related to his mother shortly, clearly, and without reserve, what was plotting in his mistress’s house, and the frightful disgrace with which she was threatened through her son.