But why were their eyes so fixed and strange, and why did they walk in absolute silence? And then the invisible cicerone of dreams, who is one's other self, whispered in his ear, "These are they whom men call dead." And, like everything else said by that cicerone, these words seemed to throw a flood of light on the situation, to make it immediately normal, even prosaic. Then the road took a sudden turn, and before them stretched a sort of heath, dotted with the white booths of a fair. "That is the market of souls," whispered the invisible cicerone. "Of course, of course," muttered Master Nathaniel, as if all his life he had known of its existence. And, indeed, he had forgotten all about Ranulph, and thought that to visit this fair had been the one object of his journey. They crossed the heath, and then they paid their gate-money to a silent old man. And though Master Nathaniel paid with a coin of a metal and design he had never seen before, it was with no sense of a link missing in the chain of cause and effect that he produced it from his pocket. Outwardly, there was nothing different in this fair from those in Dorimare. Pewterers, shoemakers, silversmiths were displaying their wares; there were cows and sheep and pigs, and refreshment booths and raree-shows. But instead of the cheerful, variegated din that is part of the fun of the every-day fair, over this one there reigned complete silence; for the beasts were as silent as the people. Dead silence, and blazing sun. Master Nathaniel started off to investigate the booths. In one of them they were flinging darts at a pasteboard target, on which were painted various of the heavenly bodies, with the moon in the centre. Anyone whose dart struck the moon was allowed to choose a prize from a heap of glittering miscellaneous objects--golden feathers, shells painted with curious designs, brilliantly-coloured pots, fans, silver sheep-bells. "They're like Hempie's new ornaments," thought Master Nathaniel. In another booth there was a merry-go-round of silver horses and gilded chariots--both sadly tarnished. It was a primitive affair that moved not by machinery, but by the ceaseless trudging of a live pony--a patient, dingy little beast--tied to it with a rope. And the motion generated a thin, cracked music--tunes that had been popular in Lud-in-the-Mist when Master Nathaniel had been a little boy. There was "Oh, you Little Charmer with your pretty Puce Bow," there was "Old Daddy Popinjay fell down upon his Rump," there was "Why did she cock her Pretty Blue Eye at the Lad with the Silver Buckles?" But, except for one solitary little boy, the tarnished horses and chariots whirled round without riders; and the pert tunes sounded so thin and wan as to accentuate rather than destroy the silence and atmosphere of melancholy.