In a little while I came in view of the Water-stairs, yet, although I paused more than once to look about me, I saw no sign of the Imp. Thinking he was most probably in "ambush" somewhere, I continued my way, whistling a tune to attract his notice. Ten minutes or more elapsed, however, without any sign of him, and I was already close to the stairs, when I stopped whistling all at once, and, holding my breath, crept forward on tiptoe.
There before me was the old boat, and in it--her cheek upon a crimson cushion and the sun making a glory of her tumbled hair--was Lisbeth--asleep.
Being come as near as I dared for fear of waking her, I sat down, and lighting my pipe, fell to watching her--the up-curving shadow of her lashes, the gleam of teeth between the scarlet of her parted lips. And from the heavy braids of her hair my glance wandered down to the little tan shoe peeping at me beneath her skirt, and I called to mind how Goethe has said:
"A pretty foot is not only a continual joy, but it is the one element of beauty that defies the assaults of Time."
Sometimes a butterfly hovered past, a bee filled the air with his drone, or a bird settled for a moment upon the stairs near by to preen a ruffled feather, while soft and drowsy with distance came the ceaseless roar of the weir.
I do not know how long I had sat thus, supremely content, when I was suddenly aroused by a rustling close at hand.
I looked up sharply, and beheld a head, a head adorned with sundry feathers, and a face hideously streaked with red and green paint; but there was no mistaking those golden curls--it was the Imp!
"Hist!" he repeated, bringing out the word with a prolonged hiss, and then--before I could even guess at his intention--there was the swift gleam of a knife, a splash of the severed painter, and caught by the tide the old boat swung out and was adrift.
The Imp stood gazing on his handiwork with wide eyes, and then as I leaped to my feet something in my look seemed to frighten him, for without a word he turned and fled.
But all my attention was centred in the boat, which was drifting slowly into mid-stream with Lisbeth still fast asleep. And as I watched its sluggish progress, with a sudden chill I remembered the weir, which foamed and roared only a short half-mile away. If the boat once got drawn into that----!