Hearing the roar, the Shepherd of Clouds himself was roused and ran down to the cloudbowl; but so dark was the mountain-top that he lost his way, and narrowly missed falling down a precipice. The mountain elves, terrified by the confusion, ran hither and thither like ants whose nests had been opened. Crash went the thunder! Rumble, rumble, rumble, room, rrrr-rang bang! bang! Once he had seen the storm break over the robber army, Giles, taking advantage of the darkness, noise, and confusion, determined to make one more effort to escape. Down the endless stairs he hurried, splashing through the falling rain, down, and down, and down. Once at the bottom, he was lucky enough to find the path out of the chasm, and hurried along it to the mouth of the Valley of Thunder. He was free! The terrible storm had spent itself, and the sun was beginning to shine on the thousand rain-drops caught in the matted grass. A rainbow formed just as Giles approached the plain, and the little birds came out to shake the rain from their feathers. Now, in the secure shelter of an overhanging cliff, were to be found those people of the plain who had fled to the valley for refuge; and when these poor worried folk saw Giles coming down the valley, they recalled the prophecy that a king should come to them out of the valley, and hailed Giles as their king. Best of all, Phyllida herself ran out, and threw her arms about her husband. As for the robbers, the storm had overwhelmed them and swept them all into the river. There, I am glad to say, they turned into little fishes. When the Shepherd of Clouds found that Giles had escaped after making all this disturbance, he was very angry, and rushed to his lightning closet to hurl some thunderbolts at him. When he got to the closet, however, he found that Giles had used every single bolt, and that the cupboard was empty. Consequently, he had to wait till the end of summer before he could get some new lightning, and by that time, he was so busy arranging the autumn frosts that he quite forgot about Giles. So Giles and Phyllida became King and Queen of the people of the plain and lived happily ever after. THE CITY UNDER THE SEA [Illustration: A black ship in the background, persuded by another ship in the foreground.] Once upon a time, in a country of mountains which bordered upon the sea, dwelt a rich merchant who had three sons. The eldest and the second-born were his joy, for they were merchants too, and remained at his side; but the youngest often caused him much anxiety. Not that this youngest son was a wild or a bad lad; but love of the sea and desire for adventure ran like fire in his veins, and he could not bring himself to sit beside his father and his brothers in the counting-house.