Page:Wet Magic - Nesbit.djvu/107

The Skies Are Falling Suddenly everything seemed to have grown tiresome.

"Oh, I do wish we could go home," said Kathleen. "Couldn't we just find the door and go out?"

"We might look for the door," said Bernard cautiously, "but I don't see how we could get up into the cave again."

"We can swim all right, you know," Mavis reminded them.

"I think it would be pretty low down to go without saying good-bye to the Princesses," said Francis. "Still, there's no harm in looking for the door."

They did look for the door. And they did not find it. What they did find was a wall—a great gray wall built of solid stones—above it nothing could be seen but blue sky.

"I do wonder what's on the other side," said Bernard; and someone, I will not say which, said: "Let's climb up and see."

It was easy to climb up, for the big stones had rough edges and so did not fit very closely, and there was room for a toe here and a hand there. In a minute or two they were all up, but they could not see down on the other side because the wall was about eight feet thick. They walked toward the other edge, and still they could not see down; quite close to the edge, and still no seeing.

"It isn't sky at all," said Bernard suddenly. "It's a sort of dome—tin I shouldn't wonder, painted to look like sky."

"It can't be," said someone.

"It is though," said Bernard.

"There couldn't be one so big," said someone else.

"But there is," said Bernard.

And then someone—I will not tell you who—put out a hand, and, quite forgetting the Princess's warning, touched the sky. That hand felt something as faint and thin as a bubble—and instantly this something broke, and the sea came pouring into the Mer-people's country.

"Now you've done it," said one of those whose hand it wasn't. 97