She shook her head smiling, to say "no." She was beautiful and calm. George struck her with all his strength. But his sword broke against the glittering bosom of the queen of the Sylphs.
"Child!" she said.
And she had him shut up in a kind of crystal funnel which formed a cell under the manor; round it sharks prowled, opening their monstrous jaws armed with a triple row of sharp teeth. And it seemed as if at each charge they must break the thin partition of glass; it was not possible to sleep in this strange cell.
The point of this submarine funnel rested on a rocky bottom which was the dome of the furthest and the least known cavern of the Empire of the dwarfs.
This is what the two little men saw in the course of an hour as exactly as if they had followed George all the days of his life. The ancient Nur, after having displayed the cell scene in all its sadness, spoke to King Loc much in the way of a showman when he has shown the magic lantern to little children.
"King Loc," he said to him, "I have shown you all you wished to see, and, your knowledge being perfect, I can add nothing to it. I am not anxious to know whether what you have seen has pleased you; it is enough that it is true. Science takes no account of pleasing or displeasing. It is inhuman. It is not science, it is poetry which charms and consoles. That is why poetry is more necessary than science. King Loc, go and compose a song."
King Loc went out of the well without speaking a word.
CHAPTER XVII
IN WHICH KING LOC MAKES A TERRIBLE JOURNEY
On leaving the well of science King Loc went to his treasure, took a ring from a box of which he alone had a key, and put it on his finger. The bezel of this ring shone brightly, for it was made of magic stone whose virtues will be discovered in the course of this story. King Loc then went to his palace, where he put on a travelling cloak, drew on heavy boots, and took a stick. Then he set out through the crowded street, the broad roads, the villages, and the halls of porphyry, the lakes of petroleum, and the grottos of crystal which communicated with each other by narrow openings.