"I'm not asleep, Herr Ermenrich," he said.
"How does it happen that you are out in the middle of the night, and how
is everything at Glimminge castle? Do you want to speak with mother
Akka?"

"It's too light to sleep to-night," answered Herr Ermenrich. "Therefore
I concluded to travel over here to Karl's Island and hunt you up, friend
Thumbietot. I learned from the seamew that you were spending the night
here. I have not as yet moved over to Glimminge castle, but am still
living at Pommern."

The boy was simply overjoyed to think that Herr Ermenrich had sought him
out. They chatted about all sorts of things, like old friends. At last
the stork asked the boy if he wouldn't like to go out riding for a while
on this beautiful night.

Oh, yes! that the boy wanted to do, if the stork would manage it so that
he got back to the wild geese before sunrise. This he promised, so off
they went.

Again Herr Ermenrich flew straight toward the moon. They rose and rose;
the sea sank deep down, but the flight went so light and easy that it
seemed almost as if the boy lay still in the air.

When Herr Ermenrich began to descend, the boy thought that the flight
had lasted an unreasonably short time.

They landed on a desolate bit of seashore, which was covered with fine,
even sand. All along the coast ran a row of flying-sand drifts, with
lyme-grass on their tops. They were not very high, but they prevented
the boy from seeing any of the island.

Herr Ermenrich stood on a sand-hill, drew up one leg and bent his head
backward, so he could stick his bill under the wing. "You can roam
around on the shore for a while," he said to Thumbietot, "while I rest
myself. But don't go so far away but what you can find your way back to
me again!"

To start with, the boy intended to climb a sand-hill and see how the
land behind it looked. But when he had walked a couple of paces, he
stubbed the toe of his wooden shoe against something hard. He stooped
down, and saw that a small copper coin lay on the sand, and was so worn
with verdigris that it was almost transparent. It was so poor that he
didn't even bother to pick it up, but only kicked it out of the way.

But when he straightened himself up once more he was perfectly
astounded, for two paces away from him stood a high, dark wall with a
big, turreted gate.

The moment before, when the boy bent down, the sea lay there--shimmering
and smooth, while now it was hidden by a long wall with tow