"You bring no bread to our starving babes, and yet you laugh," she said. "Oh, Körg! Körg! trouble has made you mad!"
Still chuckling he slipped the wonder-mill from beneath his coat and said, softly:
"Hush, Rahel! A _geist_ has been with me to-night. I have brought endless fortune from the depths of the sea." And, plump in the eyes of his astonished wife, he began turning out loaves and puddings with such a gusto that the room was soon filled, and Rahel fain to implore him to cease his elfish work.
From that night, just as the little man had said, riches unlimited came to the house of Körg. No treasure too great for the mill to produce; and, though the woodchopper strove hard at secrecy, its fame spread far and wide from the mountains back to the sea, and folks flocked by thousands to view the magic engine that Körg had fished up from the the ocean's depths. And though, always good humoredly, he tested its powers and loaded his guests with princely gifts, yet he rested night after night more uneasily upon his pillow, remembering the solemn words of the _geist_:
"The day you part with it your portion shall be ashes, and _mine_ annihilation."
One day, after the space of a year, there came to the woodchopper's door a captain from far-off lands.
"I am here," he said, "to see the famous wonder-mill that blesses the house of Körg."
There was a simplicity about the old tar that completely dismantled Körg. With less than ordinary caution he brought forth the mill, and displayed it, in all its phases, before his astonished guest.
"It is a clever trickster," finally he quoth. "I wonder if it could grind so common a thing as salt."
Körg chuckled contemptuously, and speedily spurted right and left such a briny shower as made the old tar blink spasmodically and walk hurriedly away.
But, alas! that night Körg missed the mill from his side; and when, pale and shivering, he sought the golden treasures hid 'neath the floor, he found only an ashy heap, heard only the mournful words:
"The mermen and mermaids are dead. The _geists_ have ceased to reign."
Far out on the blue bosom of the sea the jolly captain rode, shouting uproariously over the treasure he had secured.
"Precious wonder-mill," he sang, "I will try thee in all thy ways. First salt for savor, then ducks for food, and gold to the end of my days." And he started the tiny wheels, and clapped his hands frantically at its ready compliance to his will.