“Why, you haven’t gone this time, fairy, have you! How lovely! Will you stay with us all through our visit?” asked Rose delightedly.
“I’ll be about,” returned the fairy. “You see, they are all used to fairies here, and one more or less won’t matter. But blow the horn.”
Ruth had found the horn while Rose talked, a golden bugle hanging from a ring in the stone arch; now she set it to her lips and blew with all her might.
At once the barred gate rose upward, while the bridge fell. The way lay straight across the moat. But all this while never a man showed himself.
The girls walked rather fearfully across the bridge, for they weren’t sure that it might not spring up into the air again and shake them off. It remained quiet, however. On the further side a strip of greensward separated the moat from the wall of a castle. The castle was built with two round towers and a square middle portion, in which a huge and heavy door of wood strengthened with bands and bolts of iron, with a small window in the upper part, frowned inhospitably. A kind of bronze gong hung beside this door.
“Strike the gong,” said Honeysqueak.
THE YOUTH, DISMOUNTING, WALKED SLOWLY TOWARD GUINEVERE
This time Rose stepped forward, took up an iron hammer that rested on the ground, and struck the gong a couple of resounding thwacks. The hollow tumult that ensued rolled on and on, first gathering strength, then diminishing, then once more swelling into a perfect sea of sound; it seemed as though all the echoes in the world had collected there, and were playing with the voice of the gong.
“My crikey,” murmured Rose.