Lost in one of his dreaming moods, he wandered on and on, with Prince at his heels.  He forgot all about Tara and his knighthood and his quest; till suddenly—­where the trees fell apart—­his eye was arrested by twin shafts of sunlight that struck downward through the green gloom.

He caught his breath and stood still.  “I’ve found them!  The Golden Tusks!” he murmured ecstatically.

The pity was he couldn’t carry them back with him as trophies.  He could only watch them fascinated, wondering how you could explain what you didn’t understand yourself.  All he knew was that they made him feel ‘dazzled inside,’ and he wanted to watch them more.

It was beautiful out in the open with the sunshine pouring down and a big lazy white cloud tangled in tree-tops.  So he flung himself on the moss, hands under his head, and lay there, Prince beside him, looking up, up into the far blue, listening to the swish and rustle of the wind talking secrets to the leaves, and all the tiny mysterious noises that make up the silence of a wood in summer.

And again he forgot about Tara and the Game and the silver watch that made him reliable.  He simply lay there in a trance-like stillness, that was not of the West, absorbing it all, with his eyes and his dazzled brain and with every sentient nerve in his body.  And again—­as when his mother smiled her praise—­the Spring sunshine itself seemed to flow through his veins....

* * * * *

Suddenly he came alive and sat upright.  Something was happening.  The Golden Tusks had disappeared, and the domes of cool green light and the far blue sky and the lazy white cloud.  Under the beeches it was almost twilight—­a creepy twilight, as if a giant had blown out the sun.  Was it really evening?  Had he been asleep?  Only his watch could answer that, and never had he loved it more dearly.  No—­it was daytime.  Twenty past twelve—­and he would be late——­

A long rumbling growl, that seemed to shudder through the wood, so startled him that it set little hammers beating all over his body.  Then the wind grew angrier—­not whispering secrets now, but tearing at the tree-tops and lashing the branches this way and that.  And every minute the wood grew darker, and the sky overhead was darkest of all—­the colour of spilled ink.  And there was Tara—­his forgotten Princess—­waiting for him in her high tower; or perhaps she had given up waiting and gone home.

“Come on, Prince,” he said, “we must run!”

The sound of his own voice was vaguely comforting:  but the moment he began to run, he felt as if some one—­or Something—­was running after him.  He knew there was nothing.  He knew it was babyish.  But what could you do if your legs were in a fearful hurry of their own accord?  Besides, Tara was waiting.  Somehow Tara seemed the point of safety.  He didn’t believe she was ever afraid——­

All in a moment the eerie darkness quivered and broke into startling light.  Twigs and leaves and bluebell spears and tiny patterns of moss seemed to leap at him and vanish as he ran:  and two minutes after, high above the agitated tree-tops, the thunder spoke.  No mere growl now; but crash on crash that seemed to be tearing the sky in two and set the little hammers inside him beating faster than ever.