“Curlylocks! Curlylocks! don’t go! Don’t leave us!” wailed the herd boys, to whom it seemed as if there were an angel with them while they could look upon Curlylocks.
“I’m not going—I’m not going away!” cried Curlylocks. But her veil fluttered, as if it would carry her away of its own accord, over the water and up into the clouds.
Suddenly they heard a scream. The water had risen and caught one of the girls by the hem of her skirt and was washing her away. Lilio stooped just in time, seized the girl, and pulled her back on to the hillock.
“We must tie ourselves together,” cried the herd boys; “we must be tied each to the other, or we shall perish.”
“Here, children—here!” cried Curlylocks, who had a kind and pitiful heart.
Quickly she stripped her magic veil off her shoulders and gave it to the herd girls. They tore the veil into strips, knotted the strips into long ropes, and bound themselves together, each to other, round Lilio and Curlylocks. And round the shepherds bleated the poor sheep in terror of being drowned.
But Curlylocks was now among these poor castaways, no better off than the rest of them. Her pearls she had wasted on toys, and her magic veil she had given away and torn up out of the goodness of her heart, and now she could no longer fly, nor save herself out of this misery.
But Lilio loved Curlylocks better than anything else in the world, and when the water was already up to his feet he called:
“Don’t be afraid, Curlylocks! I will save you and hold you up!” And he held up Curlylocks in his arms.
With one hand Curlylocks clung round Lilio’s neck, and with the other she held up her little lantern aloft towards Reygoch.