The Ravens and the Angels Part 28

"How did you come here?" said the Child kindly; "may you not return by the same way?"

"How can I tell how I came here?" sighed the Medusa; "there was darkness, and thunder, and confusion,--waves hurling one another about, until sea and sky were all mixed, and the surface was as dark as the caves below. And I was like a bubble on the breakers, until one dashed me in beyond the reach of the others, and I am left here to die."

"You shall not die," said the Child. And gently taking up the shapeless ma.s.s in both his little hands, he carried it to the edge of a rock, which rose perpendicularly out of a deep creek, and there he threw it into the sea.

The Medusa stretched her crystal body joyously,--the receding waves bore her out to sea before she could thank the Child; but he rejoiced in her happiness, and turned back with a light heart to rest in his own little dwelling. For the sun was approaching the west, and crimson rays began to tint the upper surfaces of the waves, while their shadows became blue and dark. And as he climbed the little path, and rested on his little bed that night, he thought, "How glorious it must be far out in the deep sea!"

CHAPTER III.

The next morning, when the Child came down on the beach, the sea lay calm and bright, as if the world were opening her blue eyes, and gazing full into the heavens and drinking in their smiles.

The Child found little to set right; all the creatures were so busy at their various employments that none but the waves had time to play with him; and even they crept lazily in, as if they were half asleep, and hardly took the trouble to chase him when he ran from them. So the sunshine and the quiet stole also into the merry heart of the Child, and he seated himself beside the transparent rock-pool to watch and listen.

The first thing that attracted his attention was his friend the Sea-anemone, expanding its flowery disk like a sun-flower in the crystal water, with three companions rooted to the rock beside it. They all seemed to feel the presence of the Child, and spread themselves like flowers in the sunshine as he smiled on them. And clinging to a rock beside them a tiny star expanded itself with long petals like a daisy, silently stirring its delicate rays to and fro.

"Why are you never still?" said the Child.

"Because every movement is pleasure," it replied, "and every breath I draw is a feast. My little fingers are always making little whirlpools and drawing food into my lips."

"Are you always eating and drinking?" said the Child.

"Very often," said the sea-daisy, or anemone, not in the least abashed; "it is so pleasant." And all the anemones echoed her words.

"Sometimes we rest," she added.

"You sleep," said the Child; "then do you dream?"

"I do not exactly know what you mean," said the snaky-locked anemone, "but it is all very pleasant."

The Child was silent and watched them, and as he listened he caught the sound of a low sweet song, which issued from their lips; but not only from theirs--it was vibrating all around him, the whole air and the crystal water seemed full of soft music. And the Child sat still and listened.

As he listened and looked, wonder after wonder opened before him, as if veil after veil were removed from his eyes. He was not often so long still.

Just below where he sat a little solid sand-bridge spanned the pool. It was full of small holes; and as he looked he perceived that each hole was the entrance to a tube, and the whole bridge was built of these tubes, carefully fitted into one another and glued together.

"Who built this?" he asked.

Instantly a hundred little heads came peeping out of the entrances of the tubes. Each little head was encircled with a delicate ruffle, made not of lace but of exquisite white feathers; and from each little head, as it waved its two little feelers to and fro, came the answer--

"We built the bridge, and we live in it."

Then the Child saw that the pretty sand-bridge was also a city, and was hollowed all through into chambers--each with its beautiful happy little tenant; and he could have watched them all day, the delicate fringed heads peeping out on the clear water-world, each from its own little dwelling built by itself, whilst underneath the arch young shrimps and tiny fishes flashed to and fro.

"Do you build anything besides bridges?" he asked at length.

"Look around you," answered the hundred little busy heads in chorus. And as he looked he saw that the sides of the pool were in many places covered with similar sand-chambers. Here ran out a pier far into the crystal water, dividing it into tiny bays and creeks; there rose a toy citadel, and near it a miniature cliff with peaks; and everywhere, from tiny cliffs, and citadels, and piers, and moles, and bridges, peeped out hundreds of the same delicate little ruffled heads, like courtiers of the olden time.

The Child clapped his hands for pleasure, and longed to see the soldier-crab and make him ashamed of himself.

"But what do you do when the tide is low, and your little cities are left dry?" he asked.

"We each fill up the doorway of our chamber with a drop of water, and retire into the darkness until the next tide," replied the little courtiers.

"I like you so much," said the Child; "tell me more."

"We have many relations who dress much more magnificently than we do.

Some of them have ruffs of rose-colour and crimson, and we are quite dwarfs beside them."

"Do they build cities like you?"

"They do not live in cities," was the reply. "They make their houses more like the c.o.c.kles and whelks, and live apart: some fix their sh.e.l.ly houses flat on the rocks, some raise them high in the water so as to look around them, some build on oyster-sh.e.l.ls far down in the deep sea; and these are the most beautiful of our race."

"I should like to see the deep sea," said the Child; "how beautiful it must be there! How can you go there?"

"We do not know," replied the heads; "we are dwellers in cities, and we are quite content where we are."

Then all the little heads vibrated joyously about, and the Child was silent and heard the sweet music again floating around him in chorus from the hundred little feathered heads.

As he sat still, a hairy little creature came sidling towards him over the rocks. Its head and legs and back were covered with hair; it looked like a miniature trunk of an old tree overgrown with moss, and the Child could not help laughing to see it waddling towards him. It was not until it came quite close that he saw it was a crab, and that what had seemed hairs were sea-weeds and plant-animals growing on its sh.e.l.l.

"What can you carry all that on your back for?" asked the Child, as soon as he could speak for laughing.

"I do not care in the least for it," said the crab good-naturedly. "I suppose they all enjoy it; and it makes very little difference to me as long as they do not come before my eyes."

And the hairy crab jerked itself merrily on, with the tiny forest on its back. The merry laughter of the Child rang again among the rocks, and it was some minutes before he began to look and listen again. Then he gently drew back a quant.i.ty of brown sea-weeds, which were shading his side of the pool, that he might see further into it.

Underneath the heavy brown leaves grew a tiny forest of crimson corallines, fringing the pool all around, and throwing out their delicate branches on all sides. These were motionless in the still water--a fairy forest, motionless and beautiful, as if it had been enchanted into stone. But beneath them and among them darted and flashed countless tiny living creatures, enjoying every breath of their lives;--little sh.e.l.l-fish opened and shut their sh.e.l.ls to breathe and eat; at the bottom, through the transparent water, many beautiful anemones expanded their crowns of flowers; sea-snails thrust their horns out of their pretty sh.e.l.ls, and browsed on the green sea-herbage; star-fish spread their pointed rays, beaded with orange, and clung with their hundred little cushioned fingers to the rocks; whilst all around, from the sides, peeped the tiny heads of the dwellers in the sand cities. The little crystal pool was a world of happy living beings of many races, each race having its own work and enjoyments; and from them all floated around the Child the sweet soft song, like a sweet hymn. But there were no words.

"What are you always singing?" asked the Child.

"We do not know the words," they answered. "We wait for you to sing them to us, and then the song will be complete."

"Where can I learn them?" said the Child.

"We do not know," they answered; and the sweet music floated on, rising and falling like a joyous, solemn hymn.

"I wonder if they know the words far out in the deep sea," thought the Child.

And he went silently home to his cave.

CHAPTER IV.

That night the Child dreamed that he was floating in the star-light, far out on the deep sea, and strange creatures came up from the sea-caves, and looked, and looked at him, and sang of their homes among the pearls and corals, whilst he lay floating in a dream, until the moon arose and the moonbeams embraced him, and carried him softly back by a pathway of light to his own little bed in the cave. When he awoke, the moon was looking on him from her place far up in the depths of heaven, yet touching his cheek with her silver sceptre, and the Child longed exceedingly that his dream might come true.

He soon fell asleep again; but in the morning he was full of schemes how he might sail out into the deep sea.