‘Gladly,’ answered the little Piskey.
‘Get into my Barge, then,’ cried the little old Bargeman; and the Piskey scrambled in and sat in the stern of the Barge facing the Bargeman.
‘I like rowing about this pool,’ remarked the Tiny Bargeman, as he put his little craft about and began to row from the shore. ‘It has so many memories. It was here by this mere that the Lady of the Lake (not the one who shut me up in a stone) forged the wonderful Excalibur, the two-handled sword with the jewelled hilt, which she gave to Arthur the King, who, you know, afterwards ruled all the land. It was here that Sir Bedivere—one of the Knights of the far-famed Round Table—flung the sword by order of the wounded King, and was caught by the Lake Lady’s uplifted arm. It was here—— But you are not listening,’ he cried, breaking off his sentence as he noticed that the little Piskey was not paying any attention to what he was saying.
‘I’m afraid I wasn’t,’ he said, very much ashamed. ‘I am very dull and stupid since I lost my laugh.’
‘You can’t be more stupid than I was when I was shut up in the stone,’ said the tiny old Bargeman; ‘and I can well excuse your stupidity.’
He said nothing more, for just then the Barge reached the shore from which it had put off, and, without getting out, he reached over and touched a big stone with an oar. He had no sooner touched the stone than it sprang back, and revealed a dark, deep tunnel, into which the little Barge shot like a thing alive.
‘This underground waterway was known to the fair ladies who lived by the pool, and who took away the wounded King in their little ship to the Vale of Avilion,’ remarked the Bargeman when the stone shut up itself behind them.
‘Did they?’ asked the little Piskey, trying to look interested.
‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘and they also knew of another waterway, which will never be revealed to anybody except by the Good King,’ he added half to himself, looking straight before him into the darkness of the narrow passage as he steered.
The tiny Barge, which was a very ancient-looking little craft, with a gilded dragon forming its prow, sped on. But for its size, it might well have been the same little ship to which Merlin, the little old Bargeman, had just referred. The waterway was very long and deep, and the water ran so swiftly that the Barge did not now require to be rowed. It was also very dark, and the only light that shone was the light from the little boat.