Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/423

 woman whose little child had just been siezed [sic] by a large sea-dog. The poor mother in despair wrung her hands and wept. Exter ran to the beach, walked into the water until it reached his knees, threw out his arm and cried out:—"Fetch it!" The sea-dog immediately reappeared holding his prey in his mouth, and laid the child safe and sound at the feet of the enchanter; then plunged back into the waves, and Exter majestically entered his palace, without giving the good woman time to thank him."

Ernest received this tale with a homeric laugh.

"That is not all," added Willibald, who was desirous of telling the whole story. "Baron Exter, not content with this noble action, having learned that the mother of the child was the wife of a poor workman, who had been long disabled, sent her a considerable sum of money. The woman, in gratitude for so many benefits, came and begged of him to accept as a mark of her esteem a little sapphire ring which she wore upon her finger. Exter, believing this gift of very little value, only accepted it in order not to offend by his refusal the woman who so anxiously urged it upon him; but what was his joy when, shortly after, he examined this ring, he decyphered, thanks to his scientific knowledge, Arabic characters whose interpretation apprised him that he was the fortunate possessor of the magic ring which the great Ali used to call the doves of Mahomet, with whom he often had conversations in the language of the other world."

"Here are certainly great marvels," said Ernest, "but let us go and find out what is going on down there in that circle, where the curious are standing on tip-toe to see something that is probably very interesting."

On approaching the group, the two friends distinguished in the midst of it a little woman who looked like a Bohemian, four feet high at most, with a head like a pumpkin, and who was jumping and turning about with a strange velocity, singing in a nasal tone; "Guide your fold, shepherdess!"

"Wouldst thou believe," said Willibald, "that this shortened