"Is this not my little playmate, Pease-Blossom, who likes so well to ride on the grasses and rock in the flowers?" asked the breeze; and it whisked the little fairy away and bore him along so fast that no bird could keep up with him.
They were at the Silver Sea in the twinkling of a star, and Pease-Blossom was just beginning to think that his troubles were ended, when the breeze died away as quickly as it had come, and the little fay found himself in the sea before he knew what was happening.
Fortunately for him a great tarpon fish came swimming by just then.
"Catch fast hold of my tail, and I will take you safely to shore," said he; and Pease-Blossom lost no time in doing as he was bid.
Ugh! How salty the water was and how the billows roared as the fish plunged through them, sending the white spray far above his head!
Poor Pease-Blossom was more dead than alive when they reached the shore, but as soon as he had gotten his breath again he said to his new friend:
"If you will come with me to fairyland you may swim in a stream as clear as glass. There is no salt in it, and no rough waves and every fairy in the dell will guard you from harm."
"Water without salt! I cannot imagine it," said the great tarpon. "And no waves! Why, I should die of homesickness there."
So when Pease-Blossom saw that there was nothing he could do for him, he thanked him kindly, and turned his steps to the Giant's castle which stood on a high hill close beside the sea just as the moon had said.
But Pease-Blossom's wings were so wet and so weary that though he tried once, twice, and thrice he could not fly to the lowest window ledge of the castle; and what he would have done nobody knows had not a chimney-swift who was out late from home flown by just then.