第74章

I don't know how there could be room for so many passages in such a little house. The heart of it must be ever so much farther from the sides than they are from each other. How could it have an inside that was so independent of its outside? There's the point.

It was funny--wasn't it, Diamond?"

"No," said Diamond. He was going to say that that was very much the sort of thing at the back of the north wind; but he checked himself and only added, "All right. I don't see it. I don't see why the inside should depend on the outside. It ain't so with the crabs. They creep out of their outsides and make new ones.

Mr. Raymond told me so."

"I don't see what that has got to do with it," said Nanny.

"Then go on with your story, please," said Diamond. "What did you come to, after going through all those winding passages into the heart of the moon?""I didn't say they were winding passages. I said they were long and narrow. They didn't wind. They went by corners.""That's worth knowing," remarked Diamond. "For who knows how soon he may have to go there? But the main thing is, what did you come to at last?""We came to a small box against the wall of a tiny room.

The little man told me to put my ear against it. I did so, and heard a noise something like the purring of a cat, only not so loud, and much sweeter. `What is it?' I asked. `Don't you know the sound?' returned the little man. `No,' I answered.

`Don't you know the sound of bees?' he said. I had never heard bees, and could not know the sound of them. `Those are my lady's bees,'

he went on. I had heard that bees gather honey from the flowers.

`But where are the flowers for them?' I asked. `My lady's bees gather their honey from the sun and the stars,' said the little man.

`Do let me see them,' I said. `No. I daren't do that,' he answered.

`I have no business with them. I don't understand them.

Besides, they are so bright that if one were to fly into your eye, it would blind you altogether.' `Then you have seen them?'

`Oh, yes! Once or twice, I think. But I don't quite know:

they are so very bright--like buttons of lightning. Now I've showed you all I can to-night, and we'll go back to the room.'

I followed him, and he made me sit down under a lamp that hung from the roof, and gave me some bread and honey.

"The lady had never moved. She sat with her forehead leaning on her hand, gazing out of the little window, hung like the rest with white cloudy curtains. From where I was sitting I looked out of it too, but I could see nothing. Her face was very beautiful, and very white, and very still, and her hand was as white as the forehead that leaned on it. I did not see her whole face--only the side of it, for she never moved to turn it full upon me, or even to look at me.

"How long I sat after I had eaten my bread and honey, I don't know.

The little man was busy about the room, pulling a string here, and a string there, but chiefly the string at the back of the door.

I was thinking with some uneasiness that he would soon be wanting me to go out and clean the windows, and I didn't fancy the job.

At last he came up to me with a great armful of dusters. `It's time you set about the windows,' he said; `for there's rain coming, and if they're quite clean before, then the rain can't spoil them.'

I got up at once. `You needn't be afraid,' he said. `You won't tumble off. Only you must be careful. Always hold on with one hand while you rub with the other.' As he spoke, he opened the door.

I started back in a terrible fright, for there was nothing but blue air to be seen under me, like a great water without a bottom at all.