Page:The Children Who Followed the Piper.djvu/166

THE CHILDREN simple-hearted. And, since I will not enchant, I will help you."

She lifted the shining shuttle that was in her hand and she flung it through the air. "Follow the thread of the shuttle," she said, "and the thread will bring you to the end of the Wood of Daylight-Gone."

Valentine thanked the lovely enchantress with her eye of black and her eye of sapphire. They saw the thread—it went on, hanging from twig to twig, fine and iridescent, like a spider's line. They followed it, and they came at last to the edge of the Wood of Daylight-Gone.

A mountain was before them with a cave in the face of it. They went into the cave, and passage after passage opened before them. They put Golden Hood riding upon Baldwin, and Valentine and John Ball went walking beside. They came out on the side of another mountain and they were in the world of men again with towns seen far away and a river and a mountain.