When the Dwarf heard that, it was his turn to tremble. He shook his little fist at the King; he half-drew his sword.
“I’ll have NIENTE yet,” he said, and he set spurs to his Frog, and bounded off to see the Queen of the Water Fairies.
It was night by the time the Dwarf reached the stream where the Queen lived, among the long flags and rushes and reeds of the river.
Here you see him by the river; how tired his Frog looks! He is talking to the Water Fairy. Well, he and the Water Fairy had a long talk, and the end of it was that the Fairy found only one way of saving the Princess. She flew to the King, and said, “I can only help you by making the Princess vanish clean away. I have a bird here on whose back she can fly away in safety. The Dwarf will not get her, but you will never see her again, unless a brave Prince can find her where she is hidden, and guarded by my Water Fairies.”
Then the poor mother and father cried dreadfully, but they saw there was no hope. It was better that the Princess should vanish away, than that she should be married to a horrid rude Dwarf, who rode on a Frog. So they sent for the Princess, and kissed her, and embraced her, and wept over her, and (gradually she faded out of their very arms, and vanished clean away) then she flew away on the bird’s back.
Here’s a Dwarf upon a Snail,
Take him off at once to jail!