GROUND

When he awoke Martin found himself lying on a soft downy bed in a
dim stone chamber, and feeling silky hair over his cheek and neck
and arms, he knew that he was still with his new strange mother, the
beautiful Lady of the Mountain. She, seeing him awake, took him up
in her arms, and holding him against her bosom, carried him through
a long winding stone passage, and out into the bright morning
sunlight. There by a small spring of clearest water that gushed from
the rock she washed his scratched and bruised skin, and rubbed it
with sweet-smelling unguents, and gave him food and drink. The great
spotted beast sat by them all the time, purring like a cat, and at
intervals he tried to entice Martin to leave the woman's lap and
play with him. But she would not let him out of her arms: all day
she nursed and fondled him as if he had been a helpless babe instead
of the sturdy little run-away and adventurer he had proved himself
to be. She also made him tell her the story of how he had got lost
and of all the wonderful things that had happened to him in his
wanderings in the wilderness--the people of the Mirage, and old
Jacob and the savages, the great forest, the serpent, the owl, the
wild horses and wild man, and the black people of the sky. But it
was of the Mirage and the procession of lovely beings about which he
spoke most and questioned her.

"Do you think it was all a dream?" he kept asking her, "the Queen
and all those people?"

She was vexed at the question, and turning her face away, refused to
answer him. For though at all other times, and when he spoke of
other things, she was gentle and loving in her manner, the moment he
spoke of the Queen of the Mirage and the gifts she had bestowed on
him, she became impatient, and rebuked him for saying such foolish
things.

At length she spoke and told him that it was a dream, a very very
idle dream, a dream that was not worth dreaming; that he must never
speak of it again, never think of it, but forget it, just as he had
forgotten all the other vain silly dreams he had ever had. And
having said this much a little sharply, she smiled again and fondled
him, and promised that when he next slept he should have a good dream,
one worth the dreaming, and worth remembering and talking about.

She held him away from her, seating him on her knees, to look at his
face, and said, "For oh, dear little Martin, you are lovely and
sweet to look at, and you are mine, my own s