'Thank you,' ran a faint whisper among the pillars; 'I'm on their trail again now. I must go up again. I can see better from the top,' and the voice grew fainter and higher and further off with each word till it died away completely into silence. Daddy went chasing his inspiration through the scaffolding of reverie and dream. 'We did something for him the other night after all, then,' thought Rogers with delight. 'Of course,' dropped down a wee, faint answer from above, as the author heard him thinking; 'you did a lot. I'm partly out at last. This is where all the Patterns hide. Awake, I only get their dim reflections, broken and distorted. This is reality, not that. Ha, ha! If only I can get it through, my lovely, beautiful pattern--' 'You will, you will,' cried the other, as the voice went fluttering through space. 'Ask the children. Jimbo and Monkey are up there somewhere. They're the safest guides.' Rogers gave a gulp and found that he was coughing. His feet were cold. A shudder ran across the feathery structure, making it tremble from the foundations to the forest of spires overhead. Jimbo came sliding down a pole of gleaming ebony. In a hammock of beams and rafters, swinging like a network of trapezes, Monkey swooped down after him, head first as usual. For the moon that moment passed behind a cloud, and the silver rivets started from their shadowy sockets. Clusters of star nails followed suit. The palace bent and tottered like a falling wave. Its pillars turned into trunks of pine trees; its corridors were spaces through the clouds; its chambers were great dips between the mountain summits. 'It's going too fast for sight,' thought Rogers; 'I can't keep up with it. Even the children have toppled off.' But he still heard Daddy's laughter echoing down the lanes of darkness as he chased his pattern with yearning and enthusiasm. The huge structure with its towers and walls and platforms slid softly out of sight. The moonlight sponged its outlines from the sky. The scaffolding melted into darkness, moving further westwards as night advanced. Already it was over France and Italy, sweeping grandly across the sea, bewildering the vessels in its net of glamour, and filling with wonder the eyes of the look-out men at the mast heads. 'The fire's going out,' a voice was saying. Rogers heard it through a moment's wild confusion as he fell swiftly among a forest of rafters, beams, and shifting uprights. 'I'll get more wood.' The words seemed underground. A mountain wind rose up and brought the solid world about him. He felt chilly, shivered, and opened his eyes. There stood the solemn pine trees, thick and close; moonlight flooded the spaces between them and lit their crests with silver. 'This is the Wind Wood,' he remarked aloud to reassure himself. Jimbo was bending over the fire, heaping on wood. Flame leaped up with a shower of sparks. He saw Monkey rubbing her eyes beside him.