"
"Oh dear me!" said Gluck; "have you really been so cruel?"
"Cruel!" said the dwarf, "they poured unholy water into my stream; do
you suppose I'm going to allow that?"
"Why," said Gluck, "I am sure, sir--your Majesty, I mean--they got the
water out of the church font."
"Very probably," replied the dwarf; "but," and his countenance grew
stern as he spoke, "the water which has been refused to the cry of
the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every
saint in heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy
is holy, though it had been defiled with corpses."
So saying, the dwarf stooped and plucked a lily that grew at his feet.
On its white leaves there hung three drops of clear dew. And the dwarf
shook them into the flask which Gluck held in his hand. "Cast these
into the river," he said, "and descend on the other side of the
mountains into the Treasure Valley. And so good speed."
As he spoke, the figure of the dwarf became indistinct. The playing
colours of his robe formed themselves into a prismatic mist of dewy
light; he stood for an instant veiled with them as with the belt of a
broad rainbow. The colours grew faint, the mist rose into the air; the
monarch had evaporated.
And Gluck climbed to the brink of the Golden River, and its waves were
as clear as crystal, and as brilliant as the sun. And, when he cast
the three drops of dew into the stream, there opened where they fell a
small circular whirlpool, into which the waters descended with a
musical noise.
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