Page:Lange - The Blue Fairy Book.djvu/225

 ‘Where is the eye, sister?’ said the second grey woman.

‘You have taken it yourself, sister,’ said the first grey woman.

‘Have you lost the eye, sister? have you lost the eye?’ said the third grey woman; ‘shall we never find it again, and see old times coming back?’

Then the boy slipped from behind them out of the cold cave into the air, and he laughed aloud.

When the grey women heard that laugh they began to weep, for now they know that a stranger had robbed them, and that they could not help themselves, and their tears froze as they fell from the hollows where no eyes were, and rattled on the icy ground of the cave. Then they began to implore the boy to give them their eye back again, and he could not help being sorry for them, they were so pitiful. But he said he would never give them the eye till they told him the way to the Fairies of the Garden.

Then they wrung their hands miserably, for they guessed why he had come, and how he was going to try to win the Terrible Head. Now the Dreadful Women were akin to the Three Grey Sisters, and it was hard for them to tell the boy the way. But at last they told him to keep always south, and with the land on his left and the sea on his right, till he reached the Island of the Fairies of the Garden. Then he gave them back the eye, and they began to look out once more for the old times coming back again. But the boy flew south between sea and land, keeping the land always on his left hand, till he saw a beautiful island crowned with flowering trees. There he alighted, and there he found the Three Fairies of the Garden. They were like three very beautiful young women, dressed one in green, one in white, and one in red, and they were dancing and singing round an apple tree with apples of gold, and this was their song: