“A fire, no doubt, to judge by the noise,” said a neighbor quietly. Nephelo panted now with triumph. Cirrha was before his eyes. Now he could benefit the race of man.
“Let us get out,” cried Nephelo; “let us assist in running to the rescue.”
“Don’t be impatient,” said a drowsy Drop. “We can’t get out of here till they have found the Company’s turncock, and then he must go to this plug and that plug in one street, and another, before we are turned off.”
“In the meantime the fire—”
“Will burn the house down. Help in five minutes would save a house. Now the luckiest man will seldom have his premises attended to in less than twenty.”
Nephelo thought here was another topic for his gossip in the Thames. The plugs talked of with a constant water-supply would take the sting out of the Fire-Fiend.
Presently among confused movements, confused sounds, amid a rush of water, Nephelo burst into the light—into the vivid light of a great fire that leapt and roared as Nephelo was dashed against it! Through the red flames and the black smoke in a burst of steam, the fairy reascended hopeless to the clouds.
IV.
RASCALLY CONDUCT OF THE PRINCE OF NIMBUS.
The Prince of Nimbus, whose good-nature we have celebrated, was not good for nothing. Having graciously permitted all the suitors of the Princess Cirrha to go down to earth and labor for her hand, he took advantage of their absence, and, having the coast clear, importuned the daughter of King Cumulus with his own addresses. Cirrha was not disposed to listen to them, but the rogue her father was ambitious. He desired to make a good alliance, and that object was better gained by intermarriage with a prince than with a subject. “There will be an uproar,” said the old man, “when those fellows down below come back. They will look black and no doubt storm a little, but we’ll have our royal marriage notwithstandstanding.” So the Prince of Nimbus married Cirrha, and Nephelo arrived at the court of King Cumulus one evening during the celebration of the bridal feast. His wrath was seen on earth in many parts of England in the shape of a great thunderstorm on the 16th of July. The adventures of the other suitors, they being thus cheated of their object, need not be detailed. As each returns he will be made acquainted with the scandalous fraud practised by the Prince of Nimbus, and this being the state of politics in Cloud-Land at the moment when we go to press, we may fairly expect to witness five or six more thunderstorms before next winter. Each suitor, as he returns and finds how shamefully he has been cheated, will create a great disturbance; and no wonder. Conduct so rascally as that of the Prince of Nimbus is enough to fill the clouds with uproar.