“Of course they don’t,” she said.  And I would have pressed the matter further but the old black cat had come out of the cottage and was looking at me whimsically and saying nothing so that I knew I was asking silly questions.  And I asked instead why some of the poets were idle and were watching butterflies without being beaten.  And she said:  “The butterflies know where the pearls are hidden and they are waiting for one to alight above the buried treasure.  They cannot dig until they know where to dig.”  And all of a sudden a faun came out of a rhododendron forest and began to dance upon a disk of bronze in which a fountain was set; and the sound of his two hooves dancing on the bronze was beautiful as bells.

“Tea-bell,” said the witch; and all the poets threw down their spades and followed her into the house, and I followed them; but the witch and all of us followed the black cat, who arched his back and lifted his tail and walked along the garden-path of blue enamelled tiles and through the black-thatched porch and the open, oaken door and into a little room where tea was ready.  And in the garden the flowers began to sing and the fountain tinkled on the disk of bronze.  And I learned that the fountain came from an otherwise unknown sea, and sometimes it threw gilded fragments up from the wrecks of unheard-of galleons, foundered in storms of some sea that was nowhere in the world; or battered to bits in wars waged with we know not whom.  Some said that it was salt because of the sea and others that it was salt with mariners’ tears.  And some of the poets took large flowers out of vases and threw their petals all about the room, and others talked two at a time and other sang.  “Why they are only children after all,” I said.

“Only children!” repeated the old witch who was pouring out cowslip wine.

"Only children,” said the old black cat.  And every one laughed at me.

“I sincerely apologize,” I said.  “I did not mean to say it.  I did not intend to insult any one.”

“Why he knows nothing at all,” said the old black cat.  And everybody laughed till the poets were put to bed.

And then I took one look at the fields we know, and turned to the other window that looks on the elfin mountains.  And the evening looked like a sapphire.  And I saw my way though the fields were growing dim, and when I found it I went downstairs and through the witch’s parlour, and out of doors and came that night to the palace of Singanee.

Lights glittered through every crystal slab—­and all were uncurtained—­in the palace of ivory.  The sounds were those of a triumphant dance.  Very haunting indeed was the booming of a bassoon, and like the dangerous advance of some galloping beast were the blows wielded by a powerful man on the huge, sonourous drum.  It seemed to me as I listened that the contest of Singanee with the more than elephantine destroyer of Perdondaris had already been set to music.