"Here I may go no further," said the bright lady; "and beyond, as you
see, all is darkness and heavy sleep."

Then she touched Prigio with her golden wand with twisted serpents, and
he became luminous, light raying out from him; and the dark lady, too,
shone like silver in the night: and on they flew, over black rocks and
black rivers, till they reached a huge mountain, like a mountain of coal,
many thousand feet high, for its head was lost in the blackness of
darkness. The dark Moon-Lady struck the rock with her ebony wand, and
said, "Open!" and the cliffs opened like a door, and they were within the
mountain.

"Here," said the dark lady, "is the storehouse of all the Stupidity;
hence it descends in showers like Stardust on the earth whenever this
mountain, which is a volcano, is in eruption. Only a little of the
Stupidity reaches the earth, and that only in invisible dust; yet you
know how weighty it is, even in that form."

"Indeed, madam," said the king, "no one knows it better than I do."

"Then make your choice of the best sort of Stupidity for your purpose,"
said the dark lady.

And in the light which flowed from their bodies King Prigio looked round
at the various kinds of Solid Stupidity. There it all lay in masses--the
Stupidity of bad Sermons, of ignorant reviewers, of bad poems, of bad
speeches, of dreary novels, of foolish statesmen, of ignorant mobs, of
fine ladies, of idle, naughty boys and girls; and the king examined them
all, and all were very, very heavy. But when he came to the Stupidity of
the Learned--of dull, blind writers on Shakspeare, and Homer, and the
Bible--then King Prigio saw that he had found the sort he wanted, and
that a very little of it would go a long way. He never could have got it
on the saddle of the Flying Horse if the dark lady had not touched it
with her ebony wand, and made it light to carry till it was wanted for
his purpose. When he needed it for use, he was to utter a certain spell,
which she taught him, and then the lump would recover its natural weight.
So he easily put a great block on his saddle-bow, and he and the dark
lady flew back till they reached the crest of the Mountains of the Moon.
There she touched him with her ebony wand, and the silver light which the
bright lady had shed on him died from his face and his body, and he
became like other men.

"You see your way?" said the dark lady, pointing to the bright moon of
earth, shining far off in the heav