"If I stay here three times seven days my body will become as thin as a shadow, and the wicked Water Demon will not see his enemy."
Speaking thus to herself, Dorothy took courage and waited three times seven days, and her body dried up and became as thin as a shadow; her mother's love alone kept her alive, for that love was her only food and her only comfort.
Nine times in a year the Water Demon leaves his palace built under the water, to walk upon the warm earth and see whom he may entice to his cold bed. Then he listens to the curses of the wicked and the profane words of the ungodly. Only once each time can he make his choice of an innocent man sacrificed to him by the immutable decrees of Fate. The Water Demon walks on the earth in a green dress-coat, and every time the eye of a human being glances at him the water drops from his left coat-tail. This time also, as Dorothy still watched among the bushes on the bank of the pool—and she waited there more than three times seven days—the Water Demon came out of the water in a green dress-coat. The heart of the shepherdess began to beat more quickly and her hands to shake as the Water Demon made the first step on the dry land, where his power ceases. She came out softly from among the bushes, and like a mere shadow walked in
