And the hairy crab jerked itself merrily on, with the tiny forest on its back. The merry laughter of the Child rang again among the rocks, and it was some minutes before he began to look and listen again. Then he gently drew back a quantity of brown sea-weeds, which were shading his side of the pool, that he might see further into it.
Underneath the heavy brown leaves grew a tiny forest of crimson corallines, fringing the pool all around, and throwing out their delicate branches on all sides. These were motionless in the still water—a fairy forest, motionless and beautiful, as if it had been enchanted into stone. But beneath them and among them darted and flashed countless tiny living creatures, enjoying every breath of their lives;—little shell-fish opened and shut their shells to breathe and eat; at the bottom, through the transparent water, many beautiful anemones expanded their crowns of flowers; sea-snails thrust their horns out of their pretty shells, and browsed on the green sea-herbage; star-fish spread their pointed rays, beaded with orange, and clung with their hundred little cushioned fingers to the rocks; whilst all around, from the sides, peeped the tiny heads of the dwellers in the sand cities. The little crystal pool was a world of happy living beings of many races, each race having its own work and enjoyments; and from them all floated around the Child the sweet soft song, like a sweet hymn. But there were no words.
"What are you always singing?" asked the Child.
"We do not know the words," they answered. "We wait for you to sing them to us, and then the song will be complete."
"Where can I learn them?" said the Child.
"We do not know," they answered; and the sweet music floated on, rising and falling like a joyous, solemn hymn.
"I wonder if they know the words far out in the deep sea," thought the Child.
And he went silently home to his cave.
CHAPTER IV.
That night the Child dreamed that he was floating in the star-light, far out on the deep sea, and strange creatures came up from the sea-caves, and looked, and looked at him, and sang of their homes among the pearls and corals, whilst he lay floating in a dream, until the moon arose and the moonbeams embraced him, and carried him softly back by a pathway of light to his own little bed in the cave. When he awoke, the moon was looking on him from her place far up in the depths of heaven, yet touching his cheek with her silver sceptre, and the Child longed exceedingly that his dream might come true.