[p143]
‘Now,’ said the mussel, ‘you get into the very middle of the sea—or as near as you can guess it. The wind will warn all the other fishes.’ As he spoke he disappeared in the dark waters.
Sep got the boat into the middle of the sea—as near as he could guess it—and waited.
After a long time he saw something swirling about in a sort of whirlpool about a hundred yards from his boat, but when he tried to move the boat towards it her bows ran on to something hard.
‘Keep still, keep still, keep still,’ cried thousands and thousands of sharp, thin, little voices. ‘You’ll kill us if you move.’
Then he looked over the boat side, and saw that the hard something was nothing but thousands and thousands of mussels all jammed close together, and through the clear water more and more were coming and piling themselves together. Almost at once his boat was slowly lifted—the top of the mussel heap showed through the water, and there he was, high and dry on a mussel reef.
And in all that part of the sea the water was disappearing, and as far as the eye could reach stretched a great plain of purple and gray—the shells of countless mussels.
Only at one spot there was still a splashing.
[p144]
Then a mussel opened its shell and spoke.
‘We’ve got him,’ it said. ‘We’ve piled our selves up till we’ve filled this part of the sea. The wind warned all the good fishes—and we’ve got the old traitor in a little pool over there. Get out and walk over our backs—we’ll all lie sideways so as not to hurt you. You must catch the fish—but whatever you do don’t kill it till we give the word.’
Sep promised, and he got out and walked over the mussels to the pool, and when he saw the wicked soul of the Magician looking out through the round eyes of a big finny fish he remembered all that his Princess had suffered, and he longed to draw his sword and kill the wicked thing then and there.