At this point the man seems to have been overcome once more with
terror, and the serpent, therefore, hastened to reassure him.

"Fear not, little one," he said in his gentle voice; "fear not. Let not
thy face be dismayed. If thou hast come to me it is God who has let thee
live, who has brought thee to this phantom isle in which there is naught
that is lacking, but it is full of all good things. Behold, thou shalt
pass month for month until thou accomplish four months upon this island.
And a ship shall come from home, and sailors in it whom thou knowest,
and thou shalt go home with them, and shalt die in thine own city."

"How glad is he," exclaimed the old mariner as he related his adventures
to the prince, "how glad is he that recounts what he has experienced
when the calamity is passed!" The prince, no doubt, replied with a
melancholy grunt, and the thread of the story was once more taken up.

There was a particular reason why the serpent should be touched and
interested to hear how Providence had saved the Egyptian from death, for
he himself had survived a great calamity, and had been saved from an
equally terrible fate, as he now proceeded to relate.

"I will tell to thee the like thereof," he said, "which happened in this
island. I dwelt herein with my brothers, and my children were among
them. Seventy-two serpents we were, all told, with my offspring and my
brothers; nor have I yet mentioned to thee a little girl brought to me
by fortune. A star came down, and all these went up in the flames. And
it happened so that I was not together with them when they were
consumed; I was not in their midst. I could have died (of grief) for
them when I found them as a single pile of corpses."

It is clear from the story that this great serpent was intended to be
pictured as a sad and lonely, but most lovable, character. All alone
upon this ghostly isle, the last of his race, one is to imagine him
dreaming of the little girl who was taken from him, together with all
his family. Although fabulous himself, and half divine, he was yet the
victim of the gods, and was made to suffer real sorrows in his unreal
existence. Day by day he wandered over his limited domain, twisting his
golden body amidst the pumpkins, and rearing himself above the
fig-trees; thundering down to the beach to salute the passing dolphins,
or sunning himself, a golden blaze, upon the rocks. There remained
naught for him to do but to await the cessation of