“‘She is yours, O Otnit!’ cried the Dwarf”
‘She is yours, O Otnit!’ cried the Dwarf; and the Emperor lifted her on to his charger, speaking to her with such tender and kindly words that her fears were stilled. With Elberich perched on the horse’s mane, they straightway rode to the coast, where the sails of the Emperor’s vessel swelled roundly in the wind. On the summer seas of the blue Mediterranean, they two were wed; and never had mortal man a sweeter wife, or maid a more gallant husband.”
When the Dwarf had come to the end of his story, he very politely bade me goodbye, and bowed me out of his Castle. A week or two later we went to Saltzburg, and there I had a real adventure.
The Professor with whom we were staying hadn’t a single grandchild, and as all his books were old and dusty, to say nothing of being written in German, I should have found it rather dull if he had not lent me his nephew’s pony. I had learnt to ride as a little chap, when we lived in the country. It was lovely there, but no one was ever ill, and Father had so few patients that we could not stay.