on
the roots the beautiful maiden with veiled eyes, whom he had seen before
stood before him and gave him the blood-red rose, and she touched his
wound and straightway it was healed.

Then the garden vanished altogether, and he stood before a dark porch
and a gate beyond which he caught a pale glimmer. And by the porch stood
a terrible shape: a hooded skeleton bearing a scythe, with white sockets
of fire which had no eyes in them but which were so terrible that no
mortal could look on them and live. And here he heard a voice saying:
"He who would cull the white poppy must look into the eyes of its
guardian and take the scythe from the bony hands." And William seized
the scythe and an icy darkness descended upon him, and he felt dizzy
and faint; yet he persisted and wrestled with the skeleton, although the
darkness seemed to be overwhelming him. He tore the hood from the bony
head and looked boldly into the fiery sockets.

Then with a crash of thunder the skeleton vanished, and the maiden with
veiled eyes led him through the gate into the quiet fields, and there
he culled the white poppy. Then the maiden turned to him and unveiled
herself, and it was Proserpine, the Queen of the Fairies.

"You have conquered," she said, "and the faery kingdom is yours for
ever, and you shall visit it and dwell in it whenever you desire, and
reveal its sounds and its sights to the mortals of the world: and in my
kingdom you shall see, as though in a mirror, the pageant of mankind,
the scroll of history, and the story of man which is writ in brave,
golden and glowing letters, of blood and tears and fire. And there is
nothing in the soul of man that shall be hid from you; and you shall
speak the secrets of my kingdom to mortal men with a voice of gold and
of honey. And when you grow weary of life you shall withdraw for ever
into the island of faery voices which lies in the heart of my kingdom.
And as for me I go to the everlasting Limbo."

Then Proserpine vanished, and William awoke from his dream, and went
home to his butcher's shop.

Soon after this he left his native village and went to London, where he
became well known; although how his surname shall be spelt is a matter
of dispute, some spelling it Shakespeare, some Shakespere, and some
Shaksper.

THE IKON

Ferroll was an intellectual, and he prided himself on the fact. At
Cambridge he had narrowly missed being a Senior Wrangler, and his
principal study there had been