"Are you a medusa?" asked the Child.
"That is my family name," said the little boatman; "my own name is Velella."
"And you?" said the Child, turning to the other stranger, whose head came far out of his sculptured spiral shell, whilst a hundred delicate feelers played around it in the waves, "I never saw any one like you before."
"I am a nautilus," said the beautiful stranger. "Our family is one of the oldest in the world. We are nearly the last of our race. The days of our glory are well-nigh over, and we sail about here and there, a feeble and dwarfish race, where our ancestors reigned supreme and unrivalled."
The Child wondered at these words, and could scarcely make out their meaning; he had not dreamt about any world but the one he lived in, or any days before those which rose and set on him; all around him seemed so infinite and inexhaustible. And now the stranger, beautiful creature! spoke to him from the entrance of a dim and wonderful world, of which he knew nothing. So the Child sat silent, with endless wonder in his earnest blue eyes, and looked for the first time on the vision of the Past.
Then the Nautilus went on:—
"There was, they say, a time, before the mountains were uncovered, or one of the trees you know had blossomed, when there was nothing more beautiful or wiser than we in the world; and we dived into the sea caves, and floated about in the boundless waste of waters beneath the sun, and the moon, and the stars. Some of our race, who lived and reigned then, have perished for ever, and their burial-places form the foundation of your earth. If you wander inland among the hills, it is said, you find everywhere the tombs of our ancestors carved in imperishable stone."
"Are you unhappy," asked the Child, "since your family are so fallen?"
"I have lost nothing," said the nautilus. "We have all of us our cup of life filled to the brim with happiness."