Lavender was quite certain that Relya had come up only to bring them safe back from the Mountain. She ran to Primrose, took him by the hand, and both crossed over to Relya by the little bridge which they had fashioned with their own tiny hands across the reeds.
XV
A doughty hero was Relya, and he felt strange talking to children. But the children did not feel in the least strange talking to a hero, because they thought kindly of everybody, and there was no guile in their hearts.
Primrose took hold of Relya’s hand and looked at his great sword. The sword was twice as big as Primrose! Primrose reached up with his little hand; he stood on tip-toe, and yet he could scarcely touch the hilt of it. Relya looked, and never had he seen such tiny hands beside his own. Relya was now in a sad quandary; he forgot all about the Girdle and Cross as he thought: “What shall I say to these poor orphan babes? They are little and foolish, and they do not understand.”
Just then Lavender asked Relya:
“And how shall we get out of the mountains, my lord?”
“Well, that is quite a sensible little girl,” considered Relya. “Here am I, marvelling how small and foolish they are, and never thinking that, after all, we have to get out of the mountains.”
Then Relya remembered what the Votaress had told him about the taper and censer.
“Listen to me, little girl! The Votaress has gone to call her sisters to help her, and I am going on to the Mountain to meet them. Please God, I shall overcome the Votaress Fairies, return to you by the Holy Lake, and lead you away from the Mountain. But if the fairies should overcome me, if I perish on the Mountain, then do you start the fire that is not lit with hands, light the taper and censer, and you will pass over the Mountain as though it were a church.”
When Lavender heard this, she was sadly grieved, and said to Prince Relya: