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