in the sun, which kept wheeling about the sky, never going below the

horizon. But he chiefly gazed northwards, to see whether any land were

appearing. All this time he never wanted to eat. He broke off little

bits of the berg now and then and sucked them, and he thought them very

nice.

At length, one time he came out of his cave, he spied far off on the

horizon, a shining peak that rose into the sky like the top of some

tremendous iceberg; and his vessel was bearing him straight towards

it. As it went on the peak rose and rose higher and higher above the

horizon; and other peaks rose after it, with sharp edges and jagged

ridges connecting them. Diamond thought this must be the place he was

going to; and he was right; for the mountains rose and rose, till he saw

the line of the coast at their feet and at length the iceberg drove into

a little bay, all around which were lofty precipices with snow on their

tops, and streaks of ice down their sides. The berg floated slowly up to

a projecting rock. Diamond stepped on shore, and without looking behind

him began to follow a natural path which led windingly towards the top

of the precipice.

When he reached it, he found himself on a broad table of ice,

along which he could walk without much difficulty. Before him, at a

considerable distance, rose a lofty ridge of ice, which shot up into

fantastic pinnacles and towers and battlements. The air was very cold,

and seemed somehow dead, for there was not the slightest breath of wind.

In the centre of the ridge before him appeared a gap like the opening

of a valley. But as he walked towards it, gazing, and wondering whether

that could be the way he had to take, he saw that what had appeared a

gap was the form of a woman seated against the ice front of the ridge,

leaning forwards with her hands in her lap, and her hair hanging down to

the ground.

“It is North Wind on her doorstep,” said Diamond joyfully, and hurried

on.

He soon came up to the place, and there the form sat, like one of

the great figures at the door of an Egyptian temple, motionless, with

drooping arms and head. Then Diamond grew frightened, because she did

not move nor speak. He was sure it was North Wind, but he thought she

must be dead at last. Her face was white as the snow, her eyes were

blue as the air in the ice-cave, and her hair hung down straight, like

icicles. She had on a greenish robe, like the colour in the hollows of a

glacier seen from far off.

He stood up before her, and gazed fearfully into her face for a few

minutes before he ventured to speak. At length, with a great effort and

a trembling voice, he faltered out--

“North Wind!”

“Well, child?” said the form, without lifting its head.

“Are you ill, dear North Wind?”

“No. I am waiting.”

“What for?”

“Till I'm wanted.”

“You don't care for me any more,” said Diamond, almost crying now.

“Yes I do. Only I can't show it. All my love is down at the bottom of my

heart. But I feel it bubbling there.”

“What do you want me to do next, dear North Wind?” said Diamond, wishing

to show his love by being obedient.

“What do you want to do yourself?”

“I want to go into the country at your back.”

“Then you must go through me.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I mean just what I say. You must walk on as if I were an open door, and

go right through me.”

“But that will hurt you.”

“Not in the least. It will hurt you, though.”

“I don't mind that, if you tell me to do it.”

“Do it,” said North Wind.

Diamond walked towards her instantly. When he reached her knees, he put

out his hand to lay it on her, but nothing was there save an intense

cold. He walked on. Then all grew white about him; and the cold stung

him like fire. He walked on still, groping through the whiteness. It

thickened about him. At last, it got into his heart, and he lost all

sense. I would say that he fainted--only whereas in common faints all

grows black about you, he felt swallowed up in whiteness. It was when he

reached North Wind's heart that he fainted and fell. But as he fell, he

rolled over the threshold, and it was thus that Diamond got to the back

of the north wind.

I HAVE now come to the most difficult part of my story. And why? Because

I do not know enough about it. And why should I not know as much about

this part as about any other part? For of course I could know nothing

about the story except Diamond had told it; and why should not Diamond

tell about the country at the back of the north wind, as well as about

his adventures in getting there? Because, when he came back, he had

forgotten a great deal, and what he did remember was very hard to tell.

Things there are so different from things here! The people there do not

speak the same language for one thing. Indeed, Diamond insisted that

there they do not speak at all. I do not think he was right, but it may

well have appeared so to Diamond. The fact is, we have different reports

of the place from the most trustworthy people. Therefore we are bound

to believe that it appears somewhat different to different people. All,

however, agree in a general way about it.

I will tell you something of what two very different people have

reported, both of whom knew more about it, I believe, than Herodotus.

One of them speaks from his own experience, for he visited the country;

the other from the testimony of a young peasant girl who came back from

it for a month's visit to her friends. The former was a great Italian

of noble family, who died more than five hundred years ago; the latter a

Scotch shepherd who died not forty years ago.

The Italian, then, informs us that he had to enter that country through

a fire so hot that he would have thrown himself into boiling glass to

cool himself. This was not Diamond's experience, but then Durante--that

was the name of the Italian, and it means Lasting, for his books will

last as long as there are enough men in the world worthy of having

them--Durante was an elderly man, and Diamond was a little boy, and so

their experience must be a little different. The peasant girl, on the

other hand, fell fast asleep in a wood, and woke in the same country.

In describing it, Durante says that the ground everywhere smelt sweetly,

and that a gentle, even-tempered wind, which never blew faster or

slower, breathed in his face as he went, making all the leaves point one

way, not so as to disturb the birds in the tops of the trees, but, on

the contrary, sounding a bass to their song. He describes also a little

river which was so full that its little waves, as it hurried along, bent

the grass, full of red and yellow flowers, through which it flowed. He

says that the purest stream in the world beside this one would look as

if it were mixed with something that did not belong to it, even although

it was flowing ever in the brown shadow of the trees, and neither sun

nor moon could shine upon it. He seems to imply that it is always the

month of May in that country. It would be out of place to describe here

the wonderful sights he saw, for the music of them is in another key

from that of this story, and I shall therefore only add from the account