“That is just what you shall have,” promised Peterkin, “if only you tell me what is in the next valley, on the other side of the white mountains; and how I may reach there the best.”
“Alas,” sighed the old fellow, “those are two riddles which I cannot answer. I only know that in that valley beyond the ridge of the boundary, there is just as much sorrow as there is here. There is something wrong there—though I have never known what it is—and the great barrier of glacier ice has hedged us from each other. So come and rest here for to-day, and to-morrow, bright and early, you may come upon some scheme to cross into that unknown valley over the mountains.”
So Peterkin took shelter there, in the green shadows of the ice cave, and slept a troubled sleep until the morning.
“A young peasant girl came toward him”
XVIII
THE VALLEY OF SILENCE
AS soon as dawn was over the glacier the next day, Peterkin was on his feet and sipping a good gulp from his flask of the Water of Bounceability. You see, he dreamed about this magic gift of the princess’s as he lay a-sleeping ... and really, what an easy thing it was to cross the boundary mountains, now!