“Upon TIME!” answered the dwarf, gloomily. “I see a River, and its waves are black, flowing from the clouds, and none knoweth its source. It rolls deeply on, aye and evermore, through a green valley, which it slowly swallows up, washing away tower and town, and vanquishing all things; and the name of the River is TIME.” Then the dwarf’s head sank on his bosom, and he spoke no more. The fairies proceeded. “Above us,” said the prince, “rises one of the loftiest mountains of the Rhine; for mountains are the Dwarf’s home. When the Great Spirit of all made earth, he saw that the hollows of the rocks and hills were tenantless, and yet that a mighty kingdom and great palaces were hid within them,--a dread and dark solitude, but lighted at times from the starry eyes of many jewels; and there was the treasure of the human world--gold and silver--and great heaps of gems, and a soil of metals. So God made a race for this vast empire, and gifted them with the power of thought, and the soul of exceeding wisdom, so that they want not the merriment and enterprise of the outer world; but musing in these dark caves is their delight. Their existence rolls away in the luxury of thought; only from time to time they appear in the world, and betoken woe or weal to men,--according to their nature, for they are divided into two tribes, the benevolent and the wrathful.” While the prince spoke, they saw glaring upon them from a ledge in the upper rock a grisly face with a long matted beard. The prince gathered himself up, and frowned at the evil dwarf, for such it was; but with a wild laugh the face abruptly disappeared, and the echo of the laugh rang with a ghastly sound through the long hollows of the earth. The queen clung to Fayzenheim’s arm. “Fear not, my queen,” said he. “The evil race have no power over our light and aerial nature; with men only they war; and he whom we have seen was, in the old ages of the world, one of the deadliest visitors to mankind.” But now they came winding by a passage to a beautiful recess in the mountain empire; it was of a circular shape of amazing height; in the midst of it played a natural fountain of sparkling waters, and around it were columns of massive granite, rising in countless vistas, till lost in the distant shade. Jewels were scattered round, and brightly played the fairy torches on the gem, the fountain, and the pale silver, that gleamed at frequent intervals from the rocks. “Here let us rest,” said the gallant fairy, clapping his hands; “what, ho! music and the feast.” So the feast was spread by the fountain’s side; and the courtiers scattered rose-leaves, which they had brought with them, for the prince and his visitor; and amidst the dark kingdom of the dwarfs broke the delicate sound of fairy lutes. “We have not these evil beings in England,” said the queen, as low as she could speak; “they rouse my fear, but my interest also. Tell me, dear prince, of what nature was the intercourse of the evil dwarf with man?”