"I know," said the King. "But I was; all the time."
"I must leave it all in your Majesty's hands," said Fiona.
"It is not here," said the King. "What you saw was only a pretence. And we cannot send for it to-night. But if you will honor us sometime by returning to our kingdom, we will see what can be done in memory of your visit. Any time you like. And by the front door, please. You will run no risks that way."
"And now," said the King, stretching out his sceptre over the great throng, "we will dance." He turned to Fiona and the Urchin. "It will be a little while before Mr. Johnson is ready to accompany you home," he said. "Perhaps you will honor us meanwhile by attending the dance also."
So the fairies danced before the King; and the fairy ring whirled and blazed with the color of them, till it was gayer than a gorse-bank in blossom, and brighter than a swarm of dragon-flies on a June grass-field, and more vivid than a fall of shooting stars; and the music that they made was wilder than the wind in the strings of a harp, and sweeter than the blackbird's song, and dearer than all the burns on the moor murmuring in unison. And the two children sat at the King's feet on the steps of the beryl throne and watched the dancers; and the Chancellor sat between them, and held Fiona's hand, and told them such stories as they had never heard before, till between laughter and tears they nearly fell off the steps of the throne, and the Chancellor laughed and cried with them for sheer joy in his own story-telling; and if there were three happier people in the world that night I do not know where they were. And the night itself passed away as a dream that men dream, and its hours seemed to them but as a few minutes—and then across the music and the dance cut the shrill harsh scream of a peacock as he greeted the day. The children saw the King rise from his throne and stretch his sceptre out over the ring; and the ring and the dancers were shrouded in a white mist which rose from the ground and wreathed its arms about them; and the beryl throne dissolved in mist, and the figure of the King above them, pointing, grew dim and huge, and spread and grew, a purple shadow that hung over them, . . . and they were standing alone in the fairy ring on Glenollisdal, under the purple sky, with the white mist wreathing itself about their feet, and the pale November dawn coming slowly up out of the sea.
Did the Urchin fling himself on the grass at Fiona's feet and thank her in broken accents for all she had done for him? I regret to state that the first thing which the Urchin did was to feel in his pocket and draw out the doubloon which he had found in the cave.
"I've got this one, anyhow, Fiona," he said. "But I wonder how I'm going to get that gun."
Then something seemed to prick him; he began to look uncomfortable and shuffle his feet, while his ears turned pink; and at last he managed to blurt out:
"I say, Fiona, it was jolly decent of you, you know."
Fiona only smiled, the wise smile of perfect understanding.