Page:Tudor Jenks--Imaginotions.djvu/24

6 So went I with the wizard to the cave to learn of the picture-flats.

Midnight moonless was bright day to the lightless gloom of that cavern. But there was a fire in front which gleamed like the fire-flashing fly of the swamps in the early of the year. And we ate of divers strange things. There were two-shelled soft fish that he did fry until they were toothsome. [: Perhaps a form of the fried oyster.] And there were also the thin-shelled sea-pinchers who go sidewise as doth a maiden seeing a gnawer of grain.

Wearied by the walk, I slept till the birds sang, and then rose to the meal of dawn.

Soon after, the wizard brought out his box, and though I shrank in terror from it, he did smile and encourage me till I put a finger upon it. It bit me not, and I felt braver. But a scribe is not a warrior. His blood is but ink.

The wizard said:

"O Scribe, fear not. 'T is a box such as holds thy styluses and reed-pens. But it has curious bits of bronze and of rock-you-can-see-through, whereby it makes pictures. Come, and I will give you the knowing of it."

Then he did open it; and it was black inside as a burnt stick, and had an eye in the fore part. He clicked at it with the forefinger, and did put in a flat piece like gray flint, and behold! a picture thereon, like unto the clear of view of midday, but smaller than the face in a baby's eye. It was most marvelous! He did also twist a bit of bronze around and brought a fog upon the little picture, which, however, presently cleared away as he did twist more.

[: Apparently the "wizard" was trying the focus upon what answered for the ground glass.]

Thus did he several times, and behold I grew bold, and did the same under his direction! 6