Page:The Children Who Followed the Piper.djvu/41

WHO FOLLOWED THE PIPER art thou back?" "Yea, Janus, I am back," said the Piper. They passed, and when the children looked back they saw Old Janus in his doorway still looking at them, although they were sure that he had not turned. He had two faces, one that looked before and the other that looked behind him, but the children did not then know that about Old Janus.

Then they heard voices that said: "Mercury has come back, Mercury has come back." The voices seemed to come from many places in the trees. The Piper stopped and called out, "Faunus!" Then a man showed himself. He was stout, but not very tall; he had a ruddy face, and bright eyes, and brown hair that grew over his forehead and down to his ears like a cap. It was his voice that sounded amongst the trees as if many voices were speaking.

The children were in a place that nobody had ever told them anything about. They were in the Wood of Daylight-Gone. To that wood had gone the gods of the old time after they had lost