Page:The Children Who Followed the Piper.djvu/183

 body. Valentine lifted the child and it touched the man above the heart. John Ball moved, John Ball breathed, and John Ball spoke.

Then Valentine took the wooden cups that had always been left beside the man of stone and he filled them with wine and he put one of the cups in John Ball's hand. John Ball looked at the cup in his hand, and he looked at the cup that Valentine held. He raised it and he drank the wine. Then Valentine took him in his arms, and they wept tears over each other.

Those who had come from Prester John's country went back with the thanks of the Emperor, and with presents for themselves. And, that John Ball and Valentine might remember them, they left with them the nuts that opened on a hinge and the little birds that perched upon finger nails and sang.

Valentine became Emperor after his father, and his faithful councillor was no one other than John Ball. And Golden Hood who had gone through the Dark Forest and who had stayed in