'But I must not come outside the circle, you know,' said Harold, dancing up and down with impatience.
'Because Tom the Cat said that if I did all would go wrong.'
'Pshaw! what should a cat know about a thing like this?' demanded the dwarf very scornfully. 'At all events, your fire will burn less than a minute longer; and you know what will happen when it goes out.'
At that Harold became almost beside himself with anxiety and bewilderment, and what to do he could not tell. But at last he thought that anything would be better than to let the fire go out; so he put one foot outside the circle and stretched forth his hand for the faggots.
'Just the least bit further,' said the dwarf coaxingly. 'I would save you the trouble if I could; but I am really too tired to stir.'
Harold saw that by stretching about six inches further he could reach a faggot. But in order to stretch six inches he would be obliged to put the other foot outside the circle. 'After all, what can it matter?' he thought. And the next moment there he was, outside!
Immediately, with aloud laugh, the dwarf flung away the faggots far into the depths of the forest; and rushing into the circle, he began to stamp out with his feet what was left of the enchanted fire.
Then Harold recognised Rumpty-Dudget for the first time, for the spell was off him. And Harold remembered what Tom the Cat had said, and he leaped back into the circle, and as the last bit of flame flickered at the end of the stick he laid himself down upon it. Whereupon Rumpty-Dudget gave a hoarse cry and vanished; and the enchanted fire blazed up famously, red, blue, and yellow, with poor Harold in the midst of it.
Now, or never, it was the time for Hilda and the cat to come back. And, sure enough, at this very instant there was a sound like the whistling of a blast of wind through the forest, and a hurrying and a skurrying, and behold! there was Tom the Cat, with Hilda on his back.
Tom said nothing, but he sprang into the circle, and without losing an instant he dug a little hole in the ground with his fore paws, throwing up the dirt in a heap behind him. When it was finished he said:
'Open the hollow pearl, Hilda, and put the Golden Ivy-seed in this hole; and make haste, for Harold is burning for Hector's sake!'