"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." She
cast a quick slanting glance at the pale sun now full above the
clearing, 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 living
warmth of her fingers. He had forgotten the paradoxes of illusion; this
was no longer illusion to him, but reality itself. It seemed to him that
he followed her, walking over the shadowed turf that gave with springy
crunch beneath his tread, though Galatea left hardly an imprint. He
glanced down, noting that he himself wore a silver garment, and that his
feet were bare; with the glance he felt a feathery breeze on his body
and a sense of mossy earth on his feet.
"Galatea," said his voice. "Galatea, what place is this? What language
do you speak?"
She glanced back laughing. "Why, this is Paracosma, of course, and this
is our language."
"Paracosma," muttered Dan. "Para--cosma!" A fragment of Greek that had
survived somehow from a Sophomore course a decade in the past came
strangely back to him. Paracosma! Land-beyond-the-world!
Galatea cast a smiling glance at him. "Does the real world seem
strange," 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 an
impudently lovely pout. "And I suppose, then, that _I_ am the phantom
instead of you!" She laughed. "Do I seem ghostlike?"
Dan made no reply; he was puzzling over unanswerable questions as he
trod behind the lithe figure of his guide. The aisle between the
unearthly trees widened, and the giants were fewer. It seemed a mile,
perhaps, before a sound of tinkling water obscured that other strange
music; they emerged on the bank of a little river, swift and
crystalline, that rippled and gurgled its way from glowing pool to
flashing rapids, sparkling under the pale sun. Galatea bent over the
brink and cupped her hands, raising a few mouthfuls of water to her
lips; 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-lit
shallows above a tiny falls--"but I always cross here." She poised
herself for a moment on the green bank, then dove like a silver arrow
into the pool. Dan followed; the water stung his body like champagne,
but a stroke or two carried him across to where Galatea had already
emerged with a glistening of creamy bare limbs. Her garment clung tight
as a metal sheath to her wet body; he felt a breath-taking thrill at the
sight of her. And then, miraculously, the silver cloth was dry, the
droplets rolled off as if from oiled silk, and they moved briskly on.
The incredible forest had ended with the river; they walked over a
meadow studded with little, many-hued, star-shaped flowers, whose fronds
underfoot were soft as a lawn. Yet still the sweet pipings followed
them, 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; true
enough, a faint and plaintive melody hummed out of the blossom. She
tossed it in his startled face and skipped on.
A little copse appeared ahead, not of the gigantic forest trees, but of
lesser growths, bearing flowers and fruits of iridescent colors, and a
tiny brook bubbled through. And there stood the objective of their
journey--a building of white, marble-like stone, single-storied and vine
covered, with broad glassless windows. They trod upon a path of bright
pebbles to the arched entrance, and here, on an intricate stone bench,
sat a grey-bearded patriarchal individual. Galatea addressed him in a
liquid language that reminded Dan of the flower-pipings; then she
turned. "This is Leucon," she said, as the ancient rose from his seat
and spoke in English.
"We are happy, Galatea and I, to welcome you, since visitors are a rare
pleasure here, and those from your shadowy country most rare."
Dan uttered puzzled words of thanks, and the old man nodded, reseating
himself on the carven bench; Galatea skipped through the arched
entrance, and Dan, after an irresolute moment, dropped to the remaining
bench. Once more his thoughts were whirling in perplexed turbulence. Was
all this indeed but illusion? Was he sitting, in actuality, in a prosaic
hotel room, peering through magic spectacles that pictured this world
about him, or was he, transported by some miracle, really sitting here
in this land of loveliness? He touched the bench; stone, hard and
unyielding, 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!"