‘What is the use of making all that noise?’ said a voice that came from close to her side, and when she looked round she saw the Man, sitting on his bundle of sticks, eating the bread ravenously, and scooping up pieces of the moon-cheese from his side.
‘What is the use of making all that noise?’ he said again, bad-temperedly.
‘I want Wopole to come back and fetch me,’ said the Princess.
‘I daresay he’d feel flattered if he knew; but he doesn’t. It’s no use howling. By the bye, I forgot to tell you—“This lanthorn doth the horned moon present.”’
‘But what has that got to do with my getting home?’ said the Princess.
‘I don’t know; but it’s my home. Look, the sea’s rising.’
The Princess looked round in alarm, for she was afraid of getting her feet wet; but though the sea was rising, it did not hurt the moon at all, for, you see, the water belonged to the earth, and so, while the moon sank lower and lower, the water remained like a solid wall above them, but did not close over them. The light of the moon attracted the fishes and strange monsters of the deep, and the Princess saw them as calmly as if they had been part of a large aquarium. She looked at them for some time; but a strange sound behind her made her turn round:
‘I am about to sing a serenade,’ said the Man.
‘Please don’t,’ said the Princess.