he perceived that it was human, but itwas almost upon him before he realized that it was a girl.
She wore a robe of silvery, half-translucent stuff, luminous asstarbeams; a thin band of silver bound glowing black hair about herforehead, and other garment or ornament she had none. Her tiny whitefeet were bare to the mossy forest floor as she stood no more than apace from him, staring dark-eyed. The thin music sounded again; shesmiled.
Dan summoned stumbling thoughts. Was this being also--illusion? Had sheno more reality than the loveliness of the forest? He opened his lips tospeak, but a strained excited voice sounded in his ears. "Who are you?"Had he spoken? The voice had come as if from another, like the sound ofone's words in fever.
The girl smiled again. "English!" she said in queer soft tones. "I canspeak a little English." She spoke slowly, carefully. "I learned itfrom"--she hesitated--"my mother's father, whom they call the GreyWeaver."
Again came the voice in Dan's ears. "Who are you?"
"I am called Galatea," she said. "I came to find you."
"To find me?" echoed the voice that was Dan's.
"Leucon, who is called the Grey Weaver, told me," she explained smiling."He said you will stay with us until the second noon from this." Shecast a quick slanting glance at the pale sun now full above theclearing, then stepped closer. "What are you called?"
"Dan," he muttered. His voice sounded oddly different.
"What a strange name!" said the girl. She stretched out her bare arm."Come," she smiled.
Dan touched her extended hand, feeling without any surprise the livingwarmth of her fingers. He had forgotten the paradoxes of illusion; thiswas no longer illusion to him, but reality itself. It seemed to him thathe followed her, walking over the shadowed turf that gave with springycrunch beneath his tread, though Galatea left hardly an imprint. Heglanced down, noting that he himself wore a silver garment, and that hisfeet were bare; with the glance he felt a feathery breeze on his bodyand a sense of mossy earth on his feet.
"Galatea," said his voice. "Galatea, what place is this? What languagedo you speak?"
She glanced back laughing. "Why, this is Paracosma, of course, and thisis our language."
"Paracosma," muttered Dan. "Para--cosma!" A fragment of Greek that hadsurvived somehow from a Sophomore course a decade in the past camestrangely back to him. Paracosma! Land-beyond-the-world!
Galatea cast a smiling glance at him. "Does the real world seemstrange," she queried, "after that shadow land of yours?"
"Shadow land?" echoed Dan, bewildered. "_This_ is shadow, not my world."
The girl's smile turned quizzical. "Poof!" she retorted with animpudently lovely pout. "And I suppose, then, that _I_ am the phantominstead of you!" She laughed. "Do I seem ghostlike?"
Dan made no reply; he was puzzling over unanswerable questions as hetrod behind the lithe figure of his guide. The aisle between theunearthly trees widened, and the giants were fewer. It seemed a mile,perhaps, before a sound of tinkling water obscured that other strangemusic; they emerged on the bank of a little river, swift andcrystalline, that rippled and gurgled its way from glowing pool toflashing rapids, sparkling under the pale sun. Galatea bent over thebrink and cupped her hands, raising a few mouthfuls of water to herlips; Dan followed her example, finding the liquid stinging cold.
"How do we cross?" he asked.
"You can wade up there,"--the dryad who led him gestured to a sun-litshallows above a tiny falls--"but I always cross here." She poisedherself for a moment on the green bank, then dove like a silver arrowinto the pool. Dan followed; the water stung his body like champagne,but a stroke or two carried him across to where Galatea had alreadyemerged with a glistening of creamy bare limbs. Her garment clung tightas a metal sheath to her wet body; he felt a breath-taking thrill at thesight of her. And then, miraculously, the silver cloth was dry, thedroplets rolled off as if from oiled silk, and they moved briskly on.
The incredible forest had ended with the river; they walked over ameadow studded with little, many-hued, star-shaped flowers, whose frondsunderfoot were soft as a lawn. Yet still the sweet pipings followedthem, now loud, now whisper-soft, in a tenuous web of melody.
"Galatea!" said Dan suddenly. "Where is the music coming from?"
She looked back amazed. "You silly one!" she laughed. "From the flowers,of course. See!" she plucked a purple star and held it to his ear; trueenough, a faint and plaintive melody hummed out of the blossom. Shetossed it in his startled face and skipped on.
A little copse appeared ahead, not of the gigantic forest trees, but oflesser growths, bearing flowers and fruits of iridescent colors, and atiny brook bubbled through. And there stood the objective of theirjourney--a building of white, marble-like stone, single-storied and vinecovered, with broad glassless windows. They trod upon a path of brightpebbles to the arched entrance, and here, on an intricate stone bench,sat a grey-bearded patriarchal individual. Galatea addressed him in aliquid language that reminded Dan of the flower-pipings; then sheturned. "This is Leucon," she said, as the ancient rose from his seatand spoke in English.
"We are happy, Galatea and I, to welcome you, since visitors are a rarepleasure here, and those from your shadowy country most rare."
Dan uttered puzzled words of thanks, and the old man nodded, reseatinghimself on the carven bench; Galatea skipped through the archedentrance, and Dan, after an irresolute moment, dropped to the remainingbench. Once more his thoughts were whirling in perplexed turbulence. Wasall this indeed but illusion? Was he sitting, in actuality, in a prosaichotel room, peering through magic spectacles that pictured this worldabout him, or was he, transported by some miracle, really sitting herein this land of loveliness? He touched the bench; stone, hard andunyielding, met his fingers.
"Leucon," said his voice, "how did you know I was coming?"
"I was told," said the other.
"By whom?"
"By no one."
"Why--_someone_ must have told you!"
The Grey Weaver shook his solemn head. "I was just told."
Dan ceased his questioning, content for the moment to drink in thebeauty about him and then Galatea returned bearing a crystal bowl of thestrange fruits. They were piled in colorful disorder, red, purple,orange and yellow, pear-shaped, egg-shaped, and clusteredspheroids--fantastic, unearthly. He selected a pale, transparent ovoid,bit into it, and was deluged by a flood of sweet liquid, to theamusement of the girl. She laughed and chose a similar morsel; biting atiny puncture in the end, she squeezed the contents into her mouth. Dantook a different sort, purple and tart as Rhenish wine, and thenanother, filled with edible, almond-like seeds. Galatea laugheddelightedly at his surprises, and even Leucon smiled a grey smile.Finally Dan tossed the last husk into the brook beside them, where itdanced briskly toward the river.
"Galatea," he said, "do you ever go to a city? What cities are inParacosma?"
"Cities? What are cities?"
"Places where many people live close together."
"Oh," said the girl frowning. "No. There are no cities here."
"Then where are the people of Paracosma? You must have neighbors."
The girl looked puzzled. "A man and a woman live off there," she said,gesturing toward a distant blue range of hills dim on the horizon. "Faraway over there. I went there once, but Leucon and I prefer the valley."
"But Galatea!" protested Dan. "Are you and Leucon alone in this valley?Where--what happened to your parents--your father and mother?"
"They went away. That way--toward the sunrise. They'll return some day."
"And if they don't?"
"Why, foolish one! What could hinder them?"
"Wild beasts," said Dan. "Poisonous insects, disease, flood, storm,lawless people, death!"
"I never heard those words," said Galatea. "There are no such thingshere." She sniffed contemptuously. "Lawless people!"
"Not--death?"
"What is death?"
"It's--" Dan paused helplessly. "It's like falling asleep and neverwaking. I
t's what happens to everyone at the end of life."
"I never heard of such a thing as the end of life!" said the girldecidedly. "There isn't such a thing."
"What happens, then," queried Dan desperately, "when one grows old?"
"Nothing, silly! No one grows old unless he wants to, like Leucon. Aperson grows to the age he likes best and then stops. It's a law!"
Dan gathered his chaotic thoughts. He stared into Galatea's dark, lovelyeyes. "Have you