the same haste as before, even after
he had gotten across Hell's Hole. But he had hardly been running two
metres before the boy patted him on the neck, and said: "Now you can
stop, goosey-gander."

At that instant they heard a number of wild howls behind them, and a
scraping of claws, and heavy falls. But of the foxes they saw nothing
more.

The next morning the lighthouse keeper on Great Karl's Island found a
bit of bark poked under the entrance-door, and on it had been cut, in
slanting, angular letters: "The foxes on the little island have fallen
down into Hell's Hole. Take care of them!"

And this the lighthouse keeper did, too.

TWO CITIES

THE CITY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

_Saturday, April ninth_.

It was a calm and clear night. The wild geese did not trouble themselves
to seek shelter in any of the grottoes, but stood and slept upon the
mountain top; and the boy had lain down in the short, dry grass beside
the geese.

It was bright moonlight that night; so bright that it was difficult for
the boy to go to sleep. He lay there and thought about just how long he
had been away from home; and he figured out that it was three weeks
since he had started on the trip. At the same time he remembered that
this was Easter-eve.

"It is to-night that all the witches come home from Blakulla," thought
he, and laughed to himself. For he was just a little afraid of both the
sea-nymph and the elf, but he didn't believe in witches the least little
bit.

If there had been any witches out that night, he should have seen them,
to be sure. It was so light in the heavens that not the tiniest black
speck could move in the air without his seeing it.

While the boy lay there with his nose in the air and thought about this,
his eye rested on something lovely! The moon's disc was whole and round,
and rather high, and over it a big bird came flying. He did not fly past
the moon, but he moved just as though he might have flown out from it.
The bird looked black against the light background, and the wings
extended from one rim of the disc to the other. He flew on, evenly, in
the same direction, and the boy thought that he was painted on the
moon's disc. The body was small, the neck long and slender, the legs
hung down, long and thin. It couldn't be anything but a stork.

A couple of seconds later Herr Ermenrich, the stork, lit beside the boy.
He bent down and poked him with his bill to awaken him.

Instantly the boy sat up.