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"Jump out!" cried Wistik, excitedly, swinging his little red cap. "Come on—jump!"
Johannes saw no way of doing so. The window was high and quite too small. Perhaps by climbing still higher he might find a way out. A flight of stairs, and another garret. Still another narrow passage, and another stairway. Then he caught another glimpse of Wistik, astride a large eagle.
"Come on, Johannes!" cried he. "You must dare to—then nothing can happen."
Johannes was ready to venture, but he could not do it. The little window was again out of reach. Back again. Empty garrets, steep stairs—stairs without end. And there was the octopus! He knew it. Again and again he saw one of the long arms with its hundreds of suckers. Sometimes one of them lay stretched along the garret floor, so that he had to step over it. Sometimes one meandered over the stairs that Johannes was obliged to mount. The whole house was full of them.
And out-of-doors the sun was shining, and the blue air was clear and bright. Wistik was circling around the house, seated on the great eagle—the very same eagle they had come across before, in Phrygia.
Out-of-doors also rang the voice of Marjon. Hark! She was singing. She, too, was in the open air. She seemed to have made a little song, herself—words and melody—for Johannes had never before heard either of them.
"Nightly there come to me,
White as the snow,
Wings that I know to be
Strange, here below.
"Up into ether blue,
Pure and so high,
Mounting on pinions true,
Singing, I fly.
"Sea-gull like then I soar—
Not light more swift—
So near to Heaven's door
To rock and drift!"
Alas! Johannes could not yet do that. He had no wings. He did, indeed, see rays of light at times, and here and there a bit of blue sky. But he could not get to it—he could not get out! And on he went again—upstairs, downstairs, through doorways, halls, and great garrets. And the terrible arms lay everywhere.
Again Marjon sang: