It was indeed Jonah, wandering vaguely this way and that, disappearing and reappearing, wholly unaware, it seemed, of their presence. He looked like a gnome. His feet made no sound as he moved about, and after a few minutes he lost himself behind a big trunk and they saw him no more. But almost at once behind him the round figures of China and Japan emerged into view. They came, moving fast and busily, blundering against the trees, tumbling down, and butting into everything that came in their path as though they could not see properly. Paul watched them with astonishment. ‘They’re only half asleep, and that’s why they see so badly,’ Nixie told him. ‘Aren’t they silly and happy?’ Before he could answer, something else moved into their limited field of vision, and he was aware that a silent grey shadow was stalking solemnly by. All dignity and self-confidence it was; stately, proud, sure of itself, in a region where it was at home, conscious of its power to see and move better than any one else. Two wide-open and brilliant eyes, shining like dropped stars, were turned for a moment towards them where they sat on the log and watched. Then, silent and beautiful, it passed on into the darkness beyond, and vanished from their sight. ‘Mrs. Tompkyns!’ whispered Nixie. ‘_She_ saw us all right!’ ‘Splendid!’ he exclaimed under his breath, full of admiration. Nixie pinched his arm. A change had come about in the last few minutes, and into this dense forest the light of approaching dawn began to steal most wonderfully. A universal murmuring filled the air. ‘The sun’s coming. They’re going to wake now!’ The child gave a little shiver of delight. Paul sat up. A general, indefinable motion, he saw, was beginning everywhere to run to and fro among the hanging streamers. More light penetrated every minute, and the tree stems began to turn from black to purple, and then from purple to faint grey. Vistas of shadowy glades began to open up on all sides; every instant the trees stood out more distinctly. The myriad threads and ribbons were astir. ‘Look!’ cried the child aloud; ‘they’re uncurling as they wake.’ He looked. The sense of wonder and beauty moved profoundly in his heart. Where, oh where, in all the dreams of his solitary years had he seen anything to equal this unearthly vision of the awakening winds? The winds moved in their sleep, and awoke. In loops, folds, and spirals of indescribable grace they slowly began to unwrap themselves from the tree stems with a million little delicate undulations; like thin mist trembling, and then smoothing out the ruffled surface of their thousand serpentine eddies, they slid swiftly upwards from the moss and ferns, disentangled themselves without effort from roots and stones and bark, and then, reinforced by countless thousands from the lower branches, they rose up slowly in vast coloured sheets towards the region of the tree-tops.