The Golden Key | Page 9

covered with green buds, and so bending over her.
"What do you want here, beautiful woman?" he said.
"Am I beautiful? I am so glad!" answered Tangle, rising. "My grandmother is beautiful."
"Yes. But what do you want?" he repeated, kindly.
"I think I want you. Are not you the Old Man of the Sea?"
"I am."
"Then grandmother says, have you any more fishes ready for her?"
"We will go and see, my dear," answered the old man, speaking yet more kindly than before. "And I can do some thing for you, can I not?"
"Yes--show me the way up to the country from which the shadows fall," said Tangle. For there she hoped to find Mossy again.
"Ah! indeed, that would be worth doing," said the old man. "But I cannot, for I do not know the way myself. But I will send you to the Old Man of the Earth. Perhaps he can tell you. He is much older than I am."
Leaning on his staff, he conducted her along the shore to a steep rock, that looked like a petrified ship turned upside down. The door of it was the rudder of a great vessel, ages ago at the bottom of the sea. Immediately within the door was a stair in the rock, down which the old man went, and Tangle followed. At the bottom, the old man had his house, and there he lived.
As soon as she entered it, Tangle heard a strange noise, unlike anything she had ever heard before. She soon found that it was the fishes talking. She tried to understand what they said; but their speech was so old-fashioned, and rude, and undefined, that she could not make much of it.
"I will go and see about those fishes for my daughter," said the Old Man of the Sea.
And moving a slide in the wall of his house, he first looked out, and then tapped upon a thick piece of crystal that filled the round opening. Tangle came up behind him, and peeping through the window into the heart of the great deep green ocean, saw the most curious creatures, some very ugly, all very odd, and with especially queer mouths, swimming about everywhere, above and below, but all coming towards the window in answer to the tap of the Old Man of the Sea. Only a few could get their mouths against the glass; but those who were floating miles away yet turned their heads towards it. The Old Man looked through the whole flock carefully for some minutes, and then turning to Tangle, said,--
"I am sorry I have not got one ready yet. I want more time than she does. But I will send some as soon as I can."
He then shut the slide.
Presently a great noise arose in the sea. The old man opened the slide again, and tapped on the glass, whereupon the fishes were all as still as sleep.
"They were only talking about you," he said. "And they do speak such nonsense!--Tomorrow," he continued, "I must show you the way to the Old Man of the Earth. He lives a long way from here."
"Do let me go at once," said Tangle.
"No. That is not possible. You must come this way first."
He led her to a hole in the wall, which she had not observed before. It was covered with the green leaves and white blossoms of a creeping plant.
"Only white-blossoming plants can grow under the sea," said the old man. "In there you will find a bath, in which you must lie till I call you."
Tangle went in, and found a smaller room or cave, in the further corner of which was a great basin hollowed out of a rock, and half full of the clearest sea-water. Little streams were constantly running into it from cracks in the wall of the cavern. It was polished quite smooth inside, and had a carpet of yellow sand in the bottom of it. Large green leaves and white flowers of various plants crowded up and over it, draping and covering it almost entirely.
No sooner was she undressed and lying in the bath, than she began to feel as if the water were sinking into her, and she was receiving all the good of sleep without undergoing its forgetfulness. She felt the good coming all the time. And she grew happier and more hopeful than she had been since she lost Mossy. But she could not help thinking how very sad it was for a poor old man to live there all alone, and have to take care of a whole seaful of stupid and riotous fishes.
After about an hour, as she thought, she heard his voice calling her, and rose out of the bath. All the fatigue and aching of her long journey had vanished. She was as whole, and