wing that the
horn had run into some tender part of Fritz's body, and at the same
instant, the flask appeared flying out of the hole in the tree by
which Fritz and Franz had entered.

"That's right," said the unicorn, "now we shall do comfortably. Get on
my back, grasp my mane tightly, hold your breath, and shut your eyes."

"If you please," said Hans, "will you set Fritz and Franz free first?"

The unicorn looked annoyed. "They are doing very well there," he said;
"why should you disturb them? But you're my master, and I must do as
you please. Only, take my word, you will be sorry for this afterward."

With that he went to the tree and, with one or two powerful blows with
his horn, made a hole large enough for the unhappy prisoners to creep
out. Two more sheepish, miserable wretches than those half-starved
brothers of his, Hans had never seen. They fell at his feet and
thanked him again and again for delivering them. They promised never
to do anything unkind or selfish again, and each assured Hans that he
had always liked him far more than he had liked the other brother.

Their protestations of affection rather disgusted Hans, only, as he
was a good-hearted boy himself, he could not help being moved by them.
He then told his brothers in what state he had left his mother, and
how he was to be taken by the unicorn to get the sparkling golden
water.

"Oh!" cried the brothers, "can't you take us, too?"

The unicorn thought it time to interfere. "No one can be taken there,
but the owner of the crystal ball," he said. "Come, master, it is time
for you to mount."

Hans clambered nimbly into his seat on the unicorn's back. "Wait for
me here," he called out to his brothers. "I shall not be long." Then
Hans shut his eyes, held his breath, and grasped the unicorn tightly
by the mane. It was as well that he did so, for the unicorn gave a
bound that carried him over the tops of the highest trees, and would
certainly have thrown him off unless he had been very firmly seated.
Three such bounds did he take, and then he paused and said to Hans,
"Now you may open your eyes." Hans found himself in a desolate, rocky
valley, without a trace of vegetation--unless the forest of dead
trees, which clothed the valley on every side, might be taken as
vegetation. In the midst of the valley there sprang up a fountain of
water, which sparked with such intense brilliancy that Hans was unable
at first to look upon it.

"There, master," sai