“If all the people are like that girl we saw last night,” he said at last,—“I don’t mean of course if they are all dead, but if they all look like that,—it seems to me that this is about the best addition the Lord has yet laid out. Maybe this is His own little pet corner down here, and He didn’t think anybody else would find it. You know I felt a good deal that way when I laid out Tangleside. It was a little shut-in neck of woods, and some of Johnnie’s friends liked it, so we just bought it and let ’em have it. I didn’t suppose anybody else would ever think of wanting to live there, but they did. People found out that we didn’t want them, and you couldn’t keep them away with clubs. They overrun the place and ruined it. Johnnie couldn’t do a thing with them. They cut out the trees and bushes that grew there, and set out a lot of nursery stuff that broke Johnnie’s heart in six months. If this place should turn out to be a sort of Tangleside of the Lord’s, I suppose He’d like it just as well if we kept out. But if the people are all like that girl——”
“You shall know presently,” interrupted Ferratoni. “They are just ahead.”
He had scarcely spoken before during the morning, and there was now a quality in his voice that made us all look first at him, and then in the direction his eyes followed. We thought he might have received some mental impression, but saw now that just beyond a little knoll on the shore, and coming down to the marge to meet us, were the figures of men. It did not surprise us; we had expected them even sooner. During our approach they regarded us, as we them, in silence.
They were very fair—almost pallid of countenance—graceful rather than robust. Their dress was quite simple in form. Something akin to both the early Syrian and Japanese it seemed, and appeared to have grown for them, rather than to have been constructed by artificial devices. Their faces were smooth, and their hair long—parted on top and gathered loosely at the back with a sort of circlet or band. To me they seemed as a part with the fields and sky behind them—some new flowering of our enchanted land.
All were young, but one younger and handsomer than the others advanced as our boat grounded. His wide-sleeved coat, or tunic, of soft glistening white was embroidered over with the flower of the plains above us. That he was of rank seemed evident. Gale, who was in the bow, stepped ashore and held out his hand to this fair youth, who laid his own in it, unhesitatingly.
“How are you?” greeted Gale, heartily. “Glad to see you. We’ve had all kinds of a time getting here, and it’s good to find somebody at home. My name is Gale, Chauncey Gale, and these are my friends. We’re from New York City, United States of America—best town and biggest country on earth. We’ve come down here to discover you, and take a look at your country to see whether we want to annex it or not. Up till yesterday we didn’t think we did, but the farther we get into your proposition the better we like it. Now, tell us who you are.”
During this rather characteristic greeting the youth had been regarding Gale with puzzled inquiry. He answered now with a gentle flow of aspirate syllables—a little address it seemed. The sounds were pleasant to the ear, but often barely audible. As he spoke, he pointed now and then to the half-dozen others about him.
We followed Gale ashore, and something like a general hand-shaking took place. The youth’s followers, however, showed no disposition to do more than lay their palms to ours for a brief instant, and then retire. But when the youth himself came to Ferratoni, their hands lingered together, and the puzzled look that had been on the face of each melted away. Then the youth spoke again, still holding Ferratoni’s hand. When he had finished, the latter, turning to us, said:
“He is the Prince of the Purple Fields. We are in the borders of his domain. With his followers he escorted until yesterday a young lady of his court for a distance on her journey to the Land of the Silent Cold. It was she we passed. Two days ago something which must have been our balloon bag was blown to them, and it was thought we were not far distant. They have dimly known of our coming, somewhat as I had received an impression of their existence.”
We regarded our companion with increasing wonder and amazement.