resting on their shoulders, that on the couch reposed a pale sweet-looking youth dressed in silk clothes of a delicate rose-colour.  He also wore crimson shoes, and a tight-fitting apple-green skull cap, which made his head look very small.  His eyes were ruby-red, and he had a long slender nose like a snipe’s bill, only broad and flattened at the tip.  And then Martin saw that he was wounded, for he had one white hand pressed to his side and it was stained with blood, and drops of blood were trickling through his fingers.

He was troubled at the sight, and he gazed at him, and listened to the words of that solemn song the old men were singing but could not understand them.  Not because he was a child, for no person, however aged and wise and filled with all learning he might be, could have understood that strange song about Wonderful Life and Wonderful Death.  Yet there was something in it too which any one who heard it, man or child, could understand; and he understood it, and it went into his heart to make it so heavy and sad that he could have put his little face down on the ground and cried as he had never cried before.  But he did not put his face down and cry, for just then the wounded youth looked down on him as they carried him past and smiled a very sweet smile:  then Martin felt that he loved him above all the bright and beautiful beings that had passed before him.

Then, when he was gone from sight; when the solemn sound of the voices began to grow fainter in the distance like the sound of a storm when it passes away, his heaviness of heart and sorrow left him, and he began to listen to the shouts and cries and clanging of noisy instruments of music swiftly coming nearer and nearer; and then all round and past him came a vast company of youths and maidens singing and playing and shouting and dancing as they moved onwards.  They were the most beautiful beings he had ever seen in their shining dresses, some all in white, others in amber-colour, others in sky-blue, and some in still other lovely colours.  “The Queen! the Queen!” they were shouting.  “Stand up, little boy, and bow to the Queen.”

“The Queen!  Kneel to the Queen, little boy,” cried others.

Then many others in the company began crying out together, “The Queen! lie down flat on the ground, little boy.”

“The Queen!  Shut your eyes and open your mouth, little boy.”

“The Queen!  Run away as fast as you can, little boy.”

“Stand on your head to the Queen, little boy!”

“Crow like a cock and bark like a dog, little boy!”

Trying to obey all these conflicting commands at one and the same time, poor Martin made strange noises and tumbled about this way and that and set them all laughing at him.

“The Queen wishes to speak to you—­stand up, little boy,” said one of the brightest beings, touching Martin on the cheek.