“Where is the Old Man of the Fire?” she said.
* I think I must be indebted to Novalis for these geometrical figures.
“Here I am,” answered the child, rising and leaving his balls on the moss. “What can I do for you?”
There was such an awfulness of absolute repose on the face of the child that Tangle stood dumb before him. He had no smile, but the love in his large gray eyes was deep as the centre. And with the repose there lay on his face a shimmer as of moonlight, which seemed as if any moment it might break into such a ravishing smile as would cause the beholder to weep himself to death. But the smile never came, and the moonlight lay there unbroken. For the heart of the child was too deep for any smile to reach from it to his face.
“Are you the oldest man of all?” Tangle at length, although filled with awe, ventured to ask.
“Yes, I am. I am very, very old. I am able to help you, I know. I can help everybody.” And the child drew near and looked up in her face so that she burst into tears.
“Can you tell me the way to the country the shadows fall from?” she sobbed.
“Yes. I know the way quite well. I go there myself sometimes. But you could not go my way; you are not old enough. I will show you how you can go.”
“Do not send me out into the great heat again,” prayed Tangle.
“I will not,” answered the child.
And he reached up, and put his little cool hand on her heart.
“Now,” he said, “you can go. The fire will not burn you. Come.”
He led her from the cave, and following him through another archway, she found herself in a vast desert of sand and rock. The sky of it was of rock, lowering over them like solid thunderclouds; and the whole place was so hot that she saw, in bright rivulets, the yellow gold and white silver and red copper trickling molten from the rocks. But the heat never came near her.
When they had gone some distance, the child turned up a great stone, and took something like an egg from under it. He next drew a long curved line in the sand with his finger, and laid the egg in it. He then spoke something Tangle could not understand. The egg broke, a small snake came out, and, lying in the line in the sand, grew and grew till he filled it. The moment he was thus full-grown, he began to glide away, undulating like a sea-wave.
“Follow that serpent,” said the child. “He will lead you the right way.”
Tangle followed the serpent. But she could not go far without looking back at the marvellous child. He stood alone in the midst of the glowing desert, beside a fountain of red flame that had burst forth at his feet, his naked whiteness glimmering a pale rosy red in the torrid fire. There he stood, looking after her, till, from the lengthening distance, she could see him no more. The serpent went straight on, turning neither to the right nor left.
Meantime Mossy had got out of the Lake of Shadows, and, following his mournful, lonely way, had reached the seashore. It was a dark, stormy evening. The sun had set. The wind was blowing from the sea. The waves had surrounded the rock within which lay the old man’s house. A deep water rolled between it and the shore, upon which a majestic figure was walking alone.
Mossy went up to him and said—
“Will you tell me where to find the Old Man of the Sea?”
“I am the Old Man of the Sea,” the figure answered.
“I see a strong kingly man of middle age,” returned Mossy.
Then the old man looked at him more intently, and said—
“Your sight, young man, is better than that of most who take this way. The night is stormy: come to my house and tell me what I can do for you.”
Mossy followed him. The waves flew from before the footsteps of the Old Man of the Sea, and Mossy followed upon dry sand.
When they had reached the cave, they sat down and gazed at each other.
Now Mossy was an old man by this time. He looked much older than the Old Man of the Sea, and his feet were very weary.
After looking at him for a moment, the old man took him by the hand and led him into his inner cave. There he helped him to undress, and laid him in the bath. And he saw that one of his hands Mossy did not open.
“What have you in that hand?” he asked.
Mossy opened his hand, and there lay the golden key.
“Ah!” said the old man, “that accounts for your knowing me. And I know the way you have to go.”
“I want to find the country whence the shadows fall,” said Mossy.
“I dare say you do. So do I. But meantime, one thing is certain.—What is that key for, do you think?”
“For a keyhole somewhere. But I don’t know why I keep it. I never could find the keyhole. And I have lived a good while, I believe,” said Mossy, sadly. “I’m not sure that I’m not old. I know my feet ache.”
“Do they?” said the old man, as if he really meant to ask the question; and Mossy, who was still lying in the bath, watched his feet for a moment before he replied—“No, they do not. Perhaps I am not old either.”
“Get up and look at yourself in the water.”
He rose and looked at himself in the water, and there was not a gray hair on his head or a wrinkle on his skin.
“You have tasted of death now,” said the old man. “Is it good?”
“It
