Page:On a pincushion.djvu/106

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Siegfrid and Handa.
93

not Handa’s voice he heard, but only a mocking echo. He feared the Hare had deceived him, and he might go on wandering in this dark passage for ever. He felt inclined to sit down and cry in despair, but there was no room to sit down, and just as he grew so tired that he thought he could go no farther, he saw in the distance a dim red light, and making one last effort he ran towards it. He found it came from a large bare vault, into which the passage led, and which was quite brilliantly lighted, though the:e was neither candle, lamp, nor window. On the farther side of the vault were sitting in a row what he at first believed to be six statues, but on looking a second time, to his great joy, he saw it was Handa and her five companions.

“Handa!” he cried. “Come, it is I.” But Handa never moved, but sat as if she were turned to stone, looking straight in front of her. Then Siegfrid ‘remembered the magic shoes on her feet, and running to her pulled them off at once. Handa jumped up, and the first thing she said was, “Siegfrid, what have you done to your eye?”

Siegfrid told her al] that had happened, and how he had given his eye to the Owl, and said he