Even as he spoke the vision began to fade and disappear, and the sound of the little feet grew fainter and fainter. Only the childish voices asking to “get back into Obedience Path” seemed still to float out from the fog curtain that had stolen over the scene.
Kitty felt very sorry for those poor children tramping in Disobedience Maze, and restlessly seeking the way out.
“Won’t they ever get out?” she asked with tears in her eyes.
“Every child has a chance,” answered Love. “But, hush!—wait—you will know by and by.”
Kitty saw that another vision was forming on the fog. She saw a cold, gray, flat plain strewn with what looked like lumps of ice very queerly shaped. Over the plain moaned a shivering sound like that of the wind. “I—I—I!” It turned to a shrill whistle. “Me—e—e—me—me!”
As the vision grew clearer Kitty perceived that what looked like lumps of ice were really frozen children. Some of them were just turning into ice. They were motionless, as if frozen to the ground; but the eyes of all were living, peering, hungry eyes, turning here and there with alert watchfulness. Their hands were also alive; they were black and blue with cold, but stretched out, opening and shutting, clutching at everything they could lay hold of, such as the bits of sticks or rags that strewed the ground.
There was something terrible and grotesque in the sight of those ice-children, motionless but for their keen eyes watching, and hands grabbing, clutching. Kitty now perceived that their lips moved also, and that they and not the wind uttered that shivering “I—I—I! Me—me—me!”
“Who are they?” she whispered.
Once more Love motioned to her to speak to them; but Kitty drew back. She was as much afraid of talking to them as she had been to the child in the cobweb. It was like talking to dead children. As she shrank away the shrill, airy voices began a song her nurse used to sing as a reproach to her when she was selfish:
“I said to myself as I walked by myself,