"There," they said, as they threw the diamonds down on the cloud, "he won't find them there!"
They had forgotten for the moment that, hidden in the black cloud, there were a great number of rain-fairies. Now the rain-fairies never enjoy themselves so much as when they are annoying the sun-fairies: and in the same way there is nothing that pleases the sun-fairies so much as a good quarrel with the rain-fairies. This does not prevent them from being very friendly when they are not quarrelling.
The rain-fairies had seen all that had happened. They pretended to think that the sun-fairies had behaved very unkindly to the Big Spider.
"It's too bad," they said, "to steal the poor thing's diamonds. It's not fair. Let's throw them down to him."
Then a great fight began between the sun-fairies and the rain-fairies for the diamonds, and the fight lasted a long time, and all the time that it lasted the Big Spider was in a rage.
THE WEB AND THE DIAMONDS AND THE BIG SPIDER HIMSELF ALL FELL TO THE GROUND
At last the rain-fairies won the fight, and went off with the diamonds in their arms.
"Now we'll throw them to the Big Spider," they said, "and we'll see how glad he is when his web is hung with diamonds as it was before."