“King Loc, he for whom you search is with the nixies in their palace of crystal, from which none ever return, and whose iridescent walls adjoin your kingdom.”
“Is he there?” cried the king, “Let him stay!” and he rubbed his hands. “I wish him joy.”
And having embraced the venerable dwarf, he emerged out of the well roaring with laughter.
The whole length of the road he held his sides so as to laugh at his ease; his head shook, and his beard swung backwards and forwards on his stomach. How he laughed! The little men who met him laughed out of sheer sympathy. Seeing them laugh made others laugh. A contagion of laughter spread from place to place until the whole interior of the earth was shaken as if with a mighty and jovial hiccough. Ha! ha! ha!
XVII
Which tells of the wonderful adventure of George of
Blanchelande
King Loc did not laugh long; indeed he hid the face of a very unhappy little man under the bed-clothes.
He lay awake all night long thinking of George of Blanchelande, the prisoner of the nixies.