By the fountain opposite the Citadelle he paused to drink from the pipe of gushing mountain water. The open courtyard looked inviting, but he did not go in, for, truth to tell, there was a curious excitement in him--an urgent, keen desire to get to sleep as soon as possible. Not that he felt sleepy--quite the reverse in fact, but that he looked forward to his bed and to 'sleeping tightly.' The village was already lost in slumber. No lights showed in any houses. Yet it was barely half-past nine. Everywhere was peace and stillness. Far across the lake he saw the twinkling villages. Behind him dreamed the forests. A deep calm brooded over the mountains; but within the calm, and just below the surface in himself, hid the excitement as of some lively anticipation. He expected something. Something was going to happen. And it was connected with the children. Jimbo and Monkey were at the bottom of it. They had said they would come for him--to 'find him later.' He wondered--quite absurdly he wondered. He passed his cousin's room on tiptoe, and noticed a light beneath the door. But, before getting into bed, he stood a moment at the open window and drew in deep draughts of the fresh night air. The world of forest swayed across his sight. The outline of the Citadelle merged into it. A point of light showed the window where the children already slept. But, far beyond, the moon was loading stars upon the trees, and a rising wind drove them in glittering flocks along the heights.... Blowing out the candle, he turned over on his side to sleep, his mind charged to the brim with wonder and curious under-thrills of this anticipation. He half expected--what? Reality lay somewhere in the whole strange business; it was not merely imaginative nonsense. Fairyland was close. And the moment he slept and began to dream, the thing took a lively and dramatic shape. A thousand tiny fingers, soft and invisible, drew him away into the heart of fairyland. There was a terror in him lest he should--stick. But he came out beautifully and smoothly, like a thread of summer grass from its covering sheath. 'I _am_ slippery after all, then--slippery enough,' he remembered saying with surprised delight, and then---- CHAPTER XV Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims. _Merchant of Venice_. ----there came to him a vivid impression of sudden light in the room, and he knew that something very familiar was happening to him, yet something that had not happened consciously for thirty years and more --since his early childhood in the night-nursery with the bars across the windows.