He let them kick a few seconds longer, and then took the toad away. They
then stood up and felt no more pain. John let all depart but the six
chief persons, to whom he said--

"This night, between twelve and one, Elizabeth and I will depart. Load
then for me three waggons with gold and silver and precious stones. I
might, you know, take all that is in the hill, and you deserve it; but I
will be merciful. Further, you must put all the furniture of my chamber
in two waggons, and get ready for me the handsomest travelling carriage
that is in the hill, with six black horses. Moreover, you must set at
liberty all the servants who have been so long here that on earth they
would be twenty years old and upwards; and you must give them as much
silver and gold as will make them rich for life, and make a law that no
one shall be detained here longer than his twentieth year."

The six took the oath, and went away quite melancholy; and John buried
his toad deep in the ground. The little people laboured hard, and
prepared everything. At midnight everything was out of the hill; and
John and Elizabeth got into the silver tun, and were drawn up.

It was then one o'clock, and it was midsummer, the very time that,
twelve years before, John had gone down into the hill. Music sounded
around them, and they saw the glass hill open, and the rays of the light
of heaven shine on them after so many years. And when they got out, they
saw the first streaks of dawn already in the east. Crowds of the
underground people were around them, busied about the waggons. John bid
them a last farewell, waved his brown cap three times in the air, and
then flung it among them. At the same moment he ceased to see them. He
beheld nothing but a green hill, and the well-known bushes and fields,