FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   >>  
She lifted her head as Mossy drew near. It was Tangle. Her hair had grown to her feet, and was rippled like the windless sea on broad sands. Her face was beautiful, like her grandmother's, and as still and peaceful as that of the Old Man of the Fire. Her form was tall and noble. Yet Mossy knew her at once. "How beautiful you are, Tangle!" he said, in delight and astonishment. "Am I?" she returned. "Oh, I have waited for you so long! But you, you are like the Old Man of the Sea. No. You are like the Old Man of the Earth. No, no. You are like the oldest man of all. You are like them all. And yet you are my own old Mossy! How did you come here? What did you do after I lost you? Did you find the key-hole? Have you got the key still?" She had a hundred questions to ask him, and he a hundred more to ask her. They told each other all their adventures, and were as happy as man and woman could be. For they were younger and better, and stronger and wiser, than they had ever been before. It began to grow dark. And they wanted more than ever to reach the country whence the shadows fall. So they looked about them for a way out of the cave. The door by which Mossy entered had closed again, and there was half a mile of rock between them and the sea. Neither could Tangle find the opening in the floor by which the serpent had led her thither. They searched till it grew so dark that they could see nothing, and gave it up. After a while, however, the cave began to glimmer again. The light came from the moon, but it did not look like moonlight, for it gleamed through those seven pillars in the middle, and filled the place with all colours. And now Mossy saw that there was a pillar beside the red one, which he had not observed before. And it was of the same new colour that he had seen in the rainbow when he saw it first in the fairy forest. And on it he saw a sparkle of blue. It was the sapphires round the key-hole. He took his key. It turned in the lock to the sound of Aeolian music. A door opened upon slow hinges, and disclosed a winding stair within. The key vanished from his fingers. Tangle went up. Mossy followed. The door closed behind them. They climbed out of the earth; and, still climbing, rose above it. They were in the rainbow. Far abroad, over ocean and land, they could see through its transparent walls the earth beneath their feet. Stairs beside stairs wound up together, and beautiful beings of all ages climbed al
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   >>  



Top keywords:

Tangle

 

beautiful

 

rainbow

 
closed
 
hundred
 

climbed

 
observed
 

pillar

 

colours

 

moonlight


glimmer
 

middle

 

filled

 

pillars

 

gleamed

 
turned
 

abroad

 

climbing

 

vanished

 
fingers

beings

 
stairs
 

Stairs

 

transparent

 

beneath

 

sparkle

 

sapphires

 
forest
 

colour

 

hinges


disclosed

 

winding

 

opened

 

Aeolian

 

wanted

 

waited

 

returned

 

delight

 

astonishment

 

oldest


rippled

 

windless

 

lifted

 

grandmother

 

peaceful

 

looked

 
entered
 

country

 

shadows

 

serpent