"No, you can't keep up with us," she said. "And we can't stay here and be ruined for your sake. If I leave you behind, you'll be eaten by a fox or a cat or those greedy ants. It would be a pity for you to be tortured, you poor little fellow. It's better that I should kill you myself and have done with it."
Then and there, she rushed at the youngster and pecked away at his head until he was dead:
"Now let's be off!" she said.
"Madam," said the eel, "you must not go without allowing me to say good-bye to you. You are a charming woman and you know how to adapt yourself to circumstances. You were incensed at the horrid robbers in the pond; and you yourself ate innocent flies from morning till night. You loved poetry; but you ate the poor May-fly, though you promised her that she should be allowed to live her poetic life for an hour. You were furious with the spider who ate her mother, and with the cray-fish, who ate her children; and now, of your own accord you have pecked your sick child to death, so that you may go to Italy."
"Thank goodness, I sha'n't see you any more, you detestable, spiteful fellow!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "But I may as well tell you that I killed my child for pity."
"And the spider ate her mother from hunger and the cray-fish her children from love," said the eel. "And I let mine shift for themselves from common sense!"
"My dears," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler, "that eel was positively created to live in this horrible pond!"
Then they flew away.
"I don't think I shall stay here, for all that," said the eel. "I am longing for the sea."
He looked round warily, then crept up into the grass and wriggled and twisted quickly to the nearest ditch.