thed
through his nostrils. The princess looked wild. It covered his nostrils.
Her eyes looked scared, and shone strange in the moonlight. His head
fell back; the water closed over it, and the bubbles of his last breath
bubbled up through the water. The princess gave a shriek, and sprang
into the lake.

She laid hold first of one leg, and then of the other, and pulled and
tugged, but she could not move either. She stopped to take breath, and
that made her think that he could not get any breath. She was frantic.
She got hold of him, and held his head above the water, which was
possible now his hands were no longer on the hole. But it was of no use,
for he was past breathing.

Love and water brought back all her strength. She got under the water,
and pulled and pulled with her whole might, till at last she got one leg
out. The other easily followed. How she got him into the boat she never
could tell; but when she did, she fainted away. Coming to herself, she
seized the oars, kept herself steady as best she could, and rowed and
rowed, though she had never rowed before. Round rocks, and over
shallows, and through mud she rowed, till she got to the landing-stairs
of the palace. By this time her people were on the shore, for they had
heard her shriek. She made them carry the prince to her own room, and
lay him in her bed, and light a fire, and send for the doctors.

"But the lake, your highness!" said the chamberlain, who, roused by the
noise, came in, in his nightcap.

"Go and drown yourself in it!" she said.

This was the last rudeness of which the princess was ever guilty; and
one must allow that she had good cause to feel provoked with the lord
chamberlain.

Had it been the king himself, he would have fared no better. But both he
and the queen were fast asleep. And the chamberlain went back to his
bed. Somehow, the doctors never came. So the princess and her old nurse
were left with the prince. But the old nurse was a wise woman, and knew
what to do.

They tried everything for a long time without success. The princess was
nearly distracted between hope and fear, but she tried on and on, one
thing after another, and everything over and over again.

At last, when they had all but given it up, just as the sun rose, the
prince opened his eyes.

XV

_Look at the Rain_!

The princess burst into a passion of tears and _fell_ on the floor.
There she lay for an hour, and her tears never ceased. All the pent-up
cry