to it than the outer door. I can only sit on the
door-step and hear the voices in there, behind me. Since I cannot blow
in that direction to get there, I have just to draw into myself and grow
weaker and fainter as I go. That makes it hard for me to carry
anything--even you--with me when I go that way. So I must get some help.
Let me get rid of a few of these clouds. There! What do you see now?"

"A boat," said Diamond.

"A ship," said North Wind, "whose captain I know well. I have often
helped him to sail his eighty miles a day northward."

"He must have tacked often to do that," said Diamond who had been
watching the ships at Sandwich.

"Yes, that gave him a share in the business. It is not good at all--mind
that, Diamond--to do everything for those you love and not give them a
share in the doing. It is not being really kind to them. If South Wind
had blown that ship straight north, the captain would just have smoked
his pipe all day and got stupider and stupider. But now I am going to
put you aboard his ship. Do you see that round thing on the deck like
the top of a drum? Below that is where they keep their spare sails. I am
going to blow it off and drop you through upon the sails. You will find
it nice and warm and dry. Just coil yourself up there and go to sleep."

A moment more, and he felt himself tumbled in on the heap of sails. Hour
after hour, he lay comfortably there. He could hear the straining of the
masts, the creaking of the boom, and the singing of the ropes with the
roaring of the wind; also the surge of the waves past the ship's sides
and the thud with which every now and then one would strike her.

All at once arose a terrible uproar. The cover was blown off again, a
fierce wind rushed in, snatched him up and bore him aloft into the
clouds. Down below, he saw the little vessel, he had been in, tossing on
the waves like a sea-bird with folded wing. Near it was a bigger ship
which was on its way to the north pole.

"That big ship will give us a lift now," said North Wind. Swooping down
she tucked him snugly in amongst some flags. And now on and on, they
sped toward the north. How long it was, Diamond did not know, but one
night she whispered in his ear, "Come up on deck, Diamond."

Everything looked very strange. Here and there on all sides, were huge
masses of floating ice looking like cathedrals and castles and crags,
and beyond them a blue sea. Some of the icebergs were drifting
northward, on