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"Thou art welcome to
the Peace
Land, little comrade!"
said the
man in a deep, musical voice,
and
the maiden added sweetly,
"I, too,
welcome thee, little
brother mine!" |
As the mighty music
of the thunder
went rolling away
in surges of
sound, the storm-cloud
stooped
to the earth, and its
up-streaming
robes of purple and pearl
dissolved in shining sheets
of rain. |
The bridge-path
along the tree-tops
was built of poles and
sticks lashed
together with creeper-withes, and
was not wide enough for two
persons to walk along abreast. It
stretched from tree to tree, rising
and falling,
and twisting and
turning endlessly. |
As they neared the edge of the
fall,
the children joined hands. The
wildly tossing waves now ceased
and the
water became perfectly
smooth, with a
sort of waxen glaze
on it which made it
look like
solid glass. This they crossed
in a
flash, and then headlong over the
edge,
with Scamp close behind.
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|
Round them rose bronze-stemmed
sea-trees, with long ribbon-like
golden-green fronds streaming
upward and waving gently in
the
current, tall blood-red,
fern-like and
fan-shaped algae,
gigantic primrose-yellow
sponges, huge masses of maroon
bladder-weed,
and festoons of
ivory-white fucus
hanging from
tree to tree. The sandy
sea-bed
was covered with glowing
sea-anemones and other living
flowers, and with
emerald
patches of sea-grass. |
Kapioláni led the way round the
crater, and though the lava-waves
heaved heavily under foot, they all
tripped
over them without any
trouble. all
round them raged the
lake of fire, glowing
with an
intensity of brilliance never seen
on
earth. They passed by
white-hot caverns
in the cliffs
from which the fused rock was
running like milk. Huge red
whirlpools with gleaming hollow
vortices
yawned on all sides.
Colossal
fire-fountains spouted
showers of red rain over
them,
and monstrous flames, many feet
high, flashed and flickered all
round them,
doing them no hurt. |
Beneath their feet they could
see
shoals of fish accompanying them
and hundreds of round horny eyes
turned up, watching their
movements.
Every now and then
huge sea-creatures
rose to the
surface, close to them
and they
greeted them laughingly and
patted their gleaming gold-plated
heads. Flights of flying-fish, like
silver
birds with gossamer wings,
streamed past
them every minute.
They met a number of ships
which
they knew to be junks. One passed
close to them. It had a high stern
and
dipping bows on which large
staring eyes
were painted. Sails
of split bamboo
matting hung
from its stumpy masts which
raked fore and aft.
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They had scarcely left the
ground
when they became aware that an
immense flight of crows, thousands
and thousands of them, had risen
out
of the city from all its
roof-ridges
and trees, and was accompanying
them like a swiftly moving black
cloud. The air was full of the
whistling of
their wings and of
their vociferous
cawing. The
children laughed
delightedly, and
Scamp yapped with excitement as
they sped along, surrounded by
their
bird escort.
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