him, and in spite of his struggles and cries he
was borne across the waters along the galleries of porphyry and crystal.

IX

Wherein we shall see how Honey-Bee was taken to the dwarfs

The moon had risen over the lake and the water now only showed broken
reflections of its disc. Honey-Bee still slept. The dwarf who had
watched her came back again on his raven followed this time by a crowd
of little men. They were very little men. Their white beards hung down
to their knees. They looked like old men with the figures of children.
By their leathern aprons and the hammers which hung from their belts one
could see that they were workers in metals. They had a curious gait,
for they leaped to amazing heights and turned the most extraordinary
somersaults, and showed the most inconceivable agility that made them
seem more like spirits than human beings.

Yet while cutting their most foolhardy capers they preserved an
unalterable gravity of demeanour, to such a degree that it was quite
impossible to make out their real characters.

They placed themselves in a circle about the sleeping child.

"Now then," said the smallest of the dwarfs from the heights of his
plumed charger; "now then, did I deceive you when I said that the
loveliest of princesses was lying asleep on the borders of the lake, and
do you not thank me for bringing you here?"

"We thank you, Bob," replied one of the dwarfs who looked like an
elderly poet, "indeed there is nothing lovelier in the world than
this young damsel. She is more rosy than the dawn which rises on the
mountains, and the gold we forge is not so bright as the gold of her
tresses."

"Very good, Pic, nothing can be truer," cried the dwarfs, "but what
shall we do with this lovely little lady?"

Pic, who looked like a very elderly poet, did not reply to this
question, probably because he knew no better than they what to do with
this pretty lady.

"Let us build a large cage and put her in," a dwarf by the name of Rug
suggested.

Against this another dwarf called Dig vehemently protested. It was Dig's
opinion that only wild beasts were ever put into cages, and there was
nothing yet to prove that the pretty lady was one of these.

But Rug clung to his idea for the reason possibly that he had no other.
He defended it with much subtlety. Said he:

"If this person is not savage she will certainly become so as a result
of the cage, which will be therefore not only useful but ind