Page:The Violet Fairy Book.djvu/228

198 He had a thousand questions to ask, and a thousand things to tell. But his brown horse stood sadly hanging his head.

‘Petru, my dear brother,’ at length said Florea, ‘would it not be better if we carried the water for you? Some one might try to take it from you on the road, while no one would suspect us.’

‘So it would,’ added Costan. ‘Florea speaks well.’ But Petru shook his head, and told them what the Goddess of Thunder had said, and about the cloth she had given him. And both brothers understood there was only one way in which they could kill him.

At a stone’s throw from where they stood ran a rushing stream, with clear deep pools.

‘Don’t you feel thirsty, Costan?’ asked Florea, winking at him.

‘Yes,’ replied Costan, understanding directly what was wanted. ‘Come, Petru, let us drink now we have the chance, and then we will set out on our way home. It is a good thing you have us with you, to protect you from harm.’

The horse neighed, and Petru knew what it meant, and did not go with his brothers.

No, he went home to his father, and cured his blindness; and as for his brothers, they never returned again.