"You speak our language," he said; "what do you wish? Why do you appear here—you, a strange woman?"
"It is I—it is Helga—dost thou not know me? Three minutes ago we were speaking together yonder in the verandah!"
"That's a mistake," said the stork; "you must have dreamt all that!"
"No, no!" she persisted. And she reminded him of the Viking's castle, and of the great ocean, and of the journey hither.
Then stork-papa winked with his eyes, and said:
"Why, that's an old story, which I heard from the time of my great-grandfather. There certainly was here in Egypt a princess of that kind from the Danish land, but she vanished on the evening of her wedding-day, many hundred years ago, and never came back! You may read about it yourself yonder on the monument in the garden; there you'll find swans and storks sculptured, and at the top you are yourself in white marble!"
And thus it was. Helga saw it, and understood it, and sank on her knees.
The sun burst forth in glory; and as, in time of yore, the frog-shape had vanished in its beams, and the beautiful form had stood displayed, so now in the light a beauteous form, clearer, purer than air—a beam of brightness—flew up into heaven!
The body crumbled to dust; and a faded lotos-flower lay on the spot where Helga had stood.