round Gerda and said,
'They shall not kill you, so long as you are not naughty. Aren't you a
princess?'

'No,' said Gerda, and she told all that had happened to her, and how
dearly she loved little Kay.

The robber-girl looked at her very seriously, and nodded her head,
saying, 'They shall not kill you, even if you are naughty, for then I
will kill you myself!'

And she dried Gerda's eyes, and stuck both her hands in the beautiful
warm muff.

The little robber-girl took Gerda to a corner of the robbers' camp where
she slept.

All round were more than a hundred wood-pigeons which seemed to be
asleep, but they moved a little when the two girls came up.

There was also, near by, a reindeer which the robber-girl teased by
tickling it with her long sharp knife.

Gerda lay awake for some time.

'Coo, coo!' said the wood-pigeons. 'We have seen little Kay. A white
bird carried his sledge; he was sitting in the Snow-queen's carriage
which drove over the forest when our little ones were in the nest. She
breathed on them, and all except we two died. Coo, coo!'

'What are you saying over there?' cried Gerda. 'Where was the Snow-queen
going to? Do you know at all?'

'She was probably travelling to Lapland, where there is always ice and
snow. Ask the reindeer.'

'There is capital ice and snow there!' said the reindeer. 'One can jump
about there in the great sparkling valleys. There the Snow-queen has
her summer palace, but her best palace is up by the North Pole, on the
island called Spitzbergen.'

'O Kay, my little Kay!' sobbed Gerda.

'You must lie still,' said the little robber-girl, 'or else I shall
stick my knife into you!'

In the morning Gerda told her all that the wood-pigeons had said. She
nodded. 'Do you know where Lapland is?' she asked the reindeer.

'Who should know better than I?' said the beast, and his eyes sparkled.
'I was born and bred there on the snow-fields.'

'Listen!' said the robber-girl to Gerda; 'you see that all the robbers
have gone; only my mother is left, and she will fall asleep in the
afternoon--then I will do something for you!'

When her mother had fallen asleep, the robber-girl went up to the
reindeer and said, 'I am going to set you free so that you can run
to Lapland. But you must go quickly and carry this little girl to the
Snow-queen's palace, where her playfellow is. You must have heard all
that she told about it, for she spoke loud enough!'

The reindeer sprang high f