Page:The Children Who Followed the Piper.djvu/181

 Prester John's kingdom was the grandest place in the world to be in.

They had been sent to the Emperor with presents of flowering orange trees out of Prester John's Indian garden. Also they brought a word of counsel to Valentine and his father.

For Prester John had heard of Valentine's friend being turned into stone; he consulted the magians who were at his court about it—the magians who were the best in the world. The magians bade Prester John tell the Emperor and tell Valentine that the one thing that might turn a man of stone into a man of flesh and blood was the touch of a hand of a child.

Valentine was overjoyed to get that word. Maybe the touch of those who had been with him in the Wood of Daylight-Gone might awaken John Ball? But no—the children who had gone with the Piper into the country of Prester John had grown to be youths and maidens. They touched the stone but it remained stone under their hands.