Page:The Children Who Followed the Piper.djvu/131

WHO FOLLOWED THE PIPER tine watched, and he saw that tears were flowing from the eyes of the wild being.

He thought he would touch the rough hand and be friends with the creature that had helped him. He touched the hand and the other grasped his hand. The strange being looked at Valentine, and its eyes were the eyes of John Ball. And again it fingered the cup. It showed Valentine the inside made smooth with yellow wax, and the outside with the carvings upon it. Then it came over Valentine's mind that this, for all his strangeness and wildness, was his friend John Ball!

He saw that the other was trying to make himself known to him by the cup Philemon had given. And Valentine cried out, "Are you John Ball, my comrade?" The other made sounds that became human words. And as they stood there, clasping each other's hands, they heard the sound of something running toward them. They looked, and they saw a horse. It was Baldwin. And the horse came to them. Then