the dwarf lifted his head with a mournful air; and gazed upon the
bright shapes before him, lighted by the pine torches that the prince's
attendants carried.

"And what dost thou muse upon, O descendant of the race of Laurin?" said
the prince.

"Upon TIME!" answered the dwarf, gloomily. "I see a River, and its waves
are black, flowing from the clouds, and none knoweth its source. It
rolls deeply on, aye and evermore, through a green valley, which it
slowly swallows up, washing away tower and town, and vanquishing all
things; and the name of the River is TIME."

Then the dwarf's head sank on his bosom, and he spoke no more.

The fairies proceeded. "Above us," said the prince, "rises one of the
loftiest mountains of the Rhine; for mountains are the Dwarf's home.
When the Great Spirit of all made earth, he saw that the hollows of the
rocks and hills were tenantless, and yet that a mighty kingdom and great
palaces were hid within them,--a dread and dark solitude, but lighted at
times from the starry eyes of many jewels; and there was the treasure of
the human world--gold and silver--and great heaps of gems, and a soil
of metals. So God made a race for this vast empire, and gifted them with
the power of thought, and the soul of exceeding wisdom, so that they
want not the merriment and enterprise of the outer world; but musing
in these dark caves is their delight. Their existence rolls away in the
luxury of thought; only from time to time they appear in the world, and
betoken woe or weal to men,--according to their nature, for they are
divided into two tribes, the benevolent and the wrathful." While the
prince spoke, they saw glaring upon them from a ledge in the upper rock
a grisly face with a long matted beard. The prince gathered himself up,
and frowned at the evil dwarf, for such it was; but with a wild laugh
the face abruptly disappeared, and the echo of the laugh rang with a
ghastly sound through the long hollows of the earth.

The queen clung to Fayzenheim's arm. "Fear not, my queen," said he. "The
evil race have no power over our light and aerial nature; with men only
they war; and he whom we have seen was, in the old ages of the world,
one of the deadliest visitors to mankind."

But now they came winding by a passage to a beautiful recess in the
mountain empire; it was of a circular shape of amazing height; in the
midst of it played a natural fountain of sparkling waters, and around it
were columns of massive g