“That is a grand idea,” replied the other. “The robber is a cruel master, so I will do as you say. But if you don’t give me the necklace the moment we get out of sight of the tower, I will kill you and the Water-Nix too.” So when it was dark, and the robber’s galley had rowed away, the priest took the necklace, hiding it under his clothes, and he and the Nix stole out to the door. Everyone was asleep or drinking but the man who waited for them with the key he had contrived to get. They let themselves out so noiselessly that no one heard them, for the robber’s man had oiled the lock, and when they reached the mainland the priest gave him the necklace. “Well, I’m off. Good luck to you!” he said, as he snatched it. Then he took to his heels and ran off with his treasure. “And now I think that is all I can do for you,” said the priest. And he left the Water-Nix standing where she was, without so much as giving her his blessing. The sooner he could put a few miles between himself and the robber’s tower the better, he thought. The Nix looked round and round about her. Below lay the sea, moaning and washing the shore, and not far off was the outline of the little graveyard in the faint starlight. She ran on along the cliffs, for far away a few lights of the town by the river’s mouth could be seen twinkling in a row, and she knew that up that river lay the mill. As morning dawned she found herself in a thick wood. She was glad, for what she had seen of people made her wish to get as far from them as possible, and she determined to hide all day in the wood, and travel on all night. She ran far in among the trees, and threw herself down on a bank and fell asleep, for she was almost worn out and her feet ached from the rough ground. She had slept a long time when she woke and saw, to her dismay, that someone else was sitting on the bank, quite near. He was a long, thin, pale young man, with lank, untidy hair and shabby clothes, and he was reading aloud to himself out of a book on his knees. As she moved he turned and saw her over the fallen trunk behind which she lay. He shut his book, taking care to keep a finger between the leaves to mark the place, and looked calmly at her. He was the first person she had met who did not seem surprised to see her. All the same, she prepared to run away. “You needn’t be afraid,” said the student—for that is what he was. “I notice that you are a Water-Nix, and, that being so, you are the very person I should wish to see. This is a poetry-book that I am reading; the writing is fine enough, but there is nothing in it as fine as what _I_ am going to write. I am going to make a poem. Three days, I assure you, have I wandered in this wood trying to think of a subject for it, and now I have it. It shall be no less than my meeting with yourself.” And he said a long sentence in Latin, which the Nix could not understand; but, then, neither could she understand much of anything else he had said, so it didn’t matter.