"No indeed," said the old dame; "I am a poor woman, and have seen trouble in my time, but, blessed be the saints! I 'm not the mother of water-imps."
"Why do you call the boy a water-imp?"
"I call him so, your excellency," said the woman, sinking her shrill voice into an awe-struck tone, "because he came from the water, and belongs to the water. He floated down the Rhine in the great flood, four years ago come spring, a mere baby, that could barely tell his name, perched on the roof of a little chalet, in the night, amid thunder, lightning, and rain! Now, it is plain that no human child could have lived through that. My good man spied him in the morning early, and took him off in his boat. I took him in for pity; but I have always been afraid of him, and every flood-time I think the Rhine is coming for his own again."
The traveller seemed deeply interested, and well he might be; for in the very flood of which the superstitious old dame spoke his only child, an infant boy, had been lost, with his nurse, whose cottage on the river-bank below Basle had been swept away by night.
"Was the child quite alone on the roof of the chalet?" he asked in an agitated tone.
"Yes," said the hostess, "all but an old dog, who seemed to belong to him."
"That dog must have dragged him up on to the roof, and saved him!" exclaimed the general; "is he yet alive?"
"Yes, just alive. He must be very old, for he is almost stone blind and deaf. My good man would have put him out of the way long ago, but for Carl; and as he shares his meals, and makes his bed with him, I suppose it is no loss to keep the brute."
"Show me the dog!" said the officer, with authority.
"Here he lies, your excellency," said the dame. "We call him Elfen-hund" (elf-dog).