"This makes you a rich man," said the Lad moodily, "and you can journey whither you please."
But the King shook his head. "Keep it," he said, "for you have lodged me for a week, and I have given you only the clumsy service of my hands."
"Very well," said the Lad simply, and put the pearl in his pocket. "My Great-Aunt is expecting me. There's a cake in the larder."
So saying he walked off, and the King was left alone. As before, he bathed himself and changed his linen, and left the contents of the larder untouched; and an hour before sunset he climbed the hill for the second time, and presently stood panting on the edge of the Ring. And again a pang of wonder that was akin to pain shot through his heart at the loveliness of the world below him.
"Beautiful earth!" he cried once more, "how fair and dear you are become to me in your remoteness. But oh, if you appear so beautiful from this summit, what must you appear from the summit of the clouds?" And he glanced from the earth to the sky, and saw the sun running down his airy hill. "Dear Temptress!" he said, "how cunningly you would snare me from my purpose." And he kissed his hand to her thrice, sealed up his lips, and entered the Ring.
Between the two tall beeches he knelt down, and drowned the following hours in thought and prayer; till that deep lake of meditation was divided by the sound of singing, as though a shoal of silver fishes swam and leaped upon its surface, putting all quietness to flight, and troubling its waters with a million lovelinesses. For now it was as though the bird's enchanting song came partly from within and partly from without, and if the fall of its music shattered his dream like falling fish, certain it seemed to him that the fish had first leaped from his own heart, out of whose unsuspected caves darted a shoal of nameless longings. He too leaped up and darted through the trees, and with head bent down, for fear of he knew not what, made his way to the Pond. Here he knelt again, drinking in the tremulous song of the bird, as tremulous as youth and maidenhood, until at last it ceased with a sweet uncompleted cry of longing. And at that instant, in the mirror of the Pond, he saw the uncompleted disc of the half-moon, and dipped his head.
Ah wonder! when he lifted it again, dazzled and dripping, he saw across the Pond a figure rising from the water, the figure, as he could now perceive in the fuller light, of a girl, clear to the waist. Her face was half turned from him, and her hair flowed half to him and half away, but within that cloudy setting gleamed the lines of her lovely neck and one white shoulder and one moonlit breast, whose undercurve appeared to float upon the Pond like the petal of a waterlily. So he knelt on his side and she on hers, both motionless, and he heart leaped (even as it had leaped at the bird's song) with a longing to kneel beside and even touch that loveliness; or, if he could not, at least to call to her across the Pond so that he would turn and reveal to him what still was hidden. He was in fact about to do so, when suddenly his senses were overwhelmed with a sweet anguish, darkness fell on him, and from its very core he sneezed twice, violently. This interruption of the previous spell was sufficient to bring him to a realization of his peril, and rising hastily he ran back to the Ring, where he remained till morning. But to what pious thoughts he then committed himself I cannot tell you; neither in what feverish fashion he got through Sunday.
On Monday morning when he arrived at the forge he found the Lad at work before him, and ebony was not blacker than his face. He glanced at the King with some show of temper, but only said:
"You look worn out."
"I have had bad dreams," said the King. "Excuse me for being behind my time. I will try to make up for it by wasting no more, and fashioning instantly two shoes as good as that I made on Saturday."