e, sinking the
ship with the other! No, no! It can't be like you!"

"Then you must believe that I am cruel," answered the strong voice of
North Wind, sounding about him out of the clouds.

"No, dear North Wind, I can't believe that. I don't believe it. I will
not believe it. How could you know how to put on such a beautiful face
if you did not love me and love all the rest too? No! You may sink as
many ships as you like--though I shall not like to see it!"

"That is quite another thing!" said North Wind.

As she spoke, she gave one spring from the roof and rushed up into the
clouds. As if the clouds knew she had come, they burst into fresh
thunderous light. Diamond seemed to be borne through an ocean of
dazzling flame. The winds were writhing around him like a storm of
serpents. For they were in the midst of the clouds and mists which of
course took the shapes of the wind, eddying, and wreathing, and
whirling, and shooting, and dashing about like gray and black water.

Now it blinded him by smiting him upon the eyes. Now it deafened him by
bellowing in his ears. But he did not mind it. He only gasped at first,
and then laughed, for the arm of North Wind was about him and he felt
quite safe, though he knew that they were sweeping with the speed of the
wind itself toward the sea! But before they reached it, Diamond felt
North Wind's hair beginning to fall down about him.

"Is the storm over, North Wind?" he called out.

"No, Diamond. I am only waiting for a moment to set you down. You will
not like to see the ship sunk and I am going to give you a place to stop
in till I come back. Look!"

With one sweep of her great white arm, she flung yards deep of darkness,
like a great curtain, from before the face of the boy. And lo! it was a
blue night lit up with stars. Where it did not shine with stars, it
shimmered with a milky whiteness of stars except where, just before
them, the gray towers of a cathedral blotted out the sky.

"A good place for you to wait in," said North Wind and swept down upon
the cathedral roof. They went in through an open door in one of the
towers. Diamond found himself at the top of a stone stair which went
twisting away down into the darkness. North Wind held his hand, and
after a little, led him out upon a narrow gallery which ran all around
the central part of the church. Below him, lay the inside of the church
like a great silent gulf hollowed in stone. On and on, they walked along
this n