He sailed on, but his ship disintegrated
in the water. The tin soldier kept on
travelling without his boat. Later he would realise that he didn’t
need it anyway, because the water
from the channel flowed into a river. At the same time, a fish was quietly
swimming down the river, minding
its own business. He noticed the tin
soldier and gulped him up at once. This was when the tin soldier started
losing any hope of ever seeing the
ballerina again.
Luckily it was the season for fishing and fishermen were waiting
around every bend. One of them caught the fish which had the tin soldier in its tummy and
went to the market to sell it. When they opened the belly of the fish,
the tin soldier found himself in the house he had fallen out of! After he was carefully washed, he once again stood happily on the
table top in front of the ballerina.