But Plunk was happy as a grig in his boat as he paddled towards the mill-wheel, and thought to himself:
“It’s easy to see, fair Dawn-Maiden, that you’ve never known want in this world. I shan’t hanker back after this earth, where I’m leaving nothing but ill-luck behind!”
So he paddled up to the mill-wheel, where round the mill-wheel the mermaids were playing their foolish games. They dived and chased each other through the water; their long hair floated on the waves, their silver fins glittered, and their red lips smiled. And they sat on the mill-wheel and made the sea all foamy around it.
The boat reached the mill-wheel, and Plunk did as the Dawn-Maiden had told him. He held his paddle aloft so that the Dark Deeps should not swallow him, and he politely asked the mill-wheel:
“Round wheel giddy-go-round, please take me down, either to the Dead Dark Deep or to the Sea King’s Palace.”
As Plunk said this, the mermaids came swishing along like so many silver fish, swarmed round the mill-wheel, seized the spokes in their snowy hands, and began to turn the wheel—swiftly, giddily.
An eddy formed in the sea—a fierce eddy, a terrible whirlpool. The whirlpool caught Plunk; it swept him round like a twig, and sucked him down to the Sea King’s fastness.
Plunk’s ears were still ringing with the swirl of the sea and the mermaids’ silly laughter when he suddenly found himself sitting on beautiful sand—fine sand of pure gold.
Plunk looked round and cried out: “Ho, there’s a wonder for you! A whole field of golden sand.”
Now what Plunk had taken to be a big field was only the great Hall of the Sea King. Round the Hall stood the sea like a marble wall, and above the Hall hung the sea, like a glass dome. Down from the stone Gold-a-Fire streamed a bluish glare, livid and pale as moonlight. From the ceiling hung festoons of pearls, and on the floor below stood tables of coral.