Soon a little spring of water bubbled up through the hole, and by and by a stream burst forth that swelled to a river, and after a time the whole land was drowned, and only the high mountain remained above the water.
But the Small People who were buried under the water didn't die. They lived on just the same, waiting for the enchanter to return and lift the spell, and the land to rise, again with all the people on it.
When the old fisherman had finished his story, he said, "I will take you in my boat to see the Small People deep down in the water.
"Yes, come with me in my boat and you shall see the Wonderland under the Sea."
As soon as the old fisherman had hoisted the sail, away they went out to sea over a wide path of moonlight like a silver road leading straight out to the sky where it dipped down to the water.
All of a sudden Mary Louise noticed something come close up under the side of the boat, and remain there staring straight at her. She bent over until she nearly touched the water, when what she had taken for a fish appeared to be a very odd-looking little man. He was even shorter than she, very broad about the shoulders, with funny little arms and feet that were brought together at the heels, with the toes turned straight out when he stood up, making them look like a fish's tail. His eyes were big and round, without any eyelids or eyebrows. But his mouth was the funniest part, and when he opened it, he looked like a fish trying to talk. He was dressed in silvery white, shaded to blue and green.
With a sudden nod, he pointed to the road which opened behind him down through the depths of the water until lost in the distance.
Little Mary Louise could not take her eyes from him, and, forgetting all about the old fisherman and the boat, she bent over more and more, so as to look closer at the funny little old man, until, splash! down she went into the water.
Then came a tremendous ringing in her ears and she felt her breath go and she knew nothing more until she found herself standing with the strange little fish man by the side of a splendid carriage made of a scallop shell, burnished until it shone with pearl and silver, and drawn by two beautiful gold-fish and two silver-fish harnessed with the silken threads of the finest sea-mosses, and driven by an old coachman that looked like a mackerel.
"We are the sea-horses of the deep,
And we race through the waters blue,
Faster than wind and swifter than tide
We gallop the ocean through."