The Queen put her fingers to her ears. "If you don’t be quiet I’ll fly away altogether," she said. But it produced no effect at all; the sound of voices went on just like the sound of surf on a pebbly shore. "Oh, I can’t stand it," the Queen said. "And to think that it is to go on like this for ever and ever, and all because of this horrible elixir! I shall fly right away from it." And she quietly rose and sailed away in the air, and the last she saw of the geese was that they were feebly trying to fly after her, waving their arms frantically as if they had been wings. The Queen flew straight up into the air, and she had reached a dizzy height before she thought of what she was doing. To tell the truth, she was a little sorrowful at the thought of leaving the geese; for, with the exception of the old bat, they had been almost her only friends. "I wish they _could_ have flown with me," she said to herself. "But, good gracious, how high I am getting! I shall be losing my way. Why, the earth looks quite small and quite like a map." And so it did. Then an idea struck the Queen. "Suppose I were to fly right up to the sun; what fun it would be!" And, since the idea had come into her bead, she determined to make the attempt. Up, up she flew, higher and ever higher, till all the air around was full of strange harmonies, as though ten thousand Æolian harps were being breathed upon in accord by a great wind. And all around her, too, the planets whirred and spun and the stars gleamed, and now and again she would pass through mists of luminousness and of gleaming hail. Up, up she went till she came where there was a great bow of iridescent colours, and rising from it a great array of white steps, that ran up, up, so high that it took away her breath to look upon them. At the top was a great glare of light. The Queen felt tired and a little bewildered; it seemed as if her wings would bear her no longer or, at least, no higher. Upon the many-coloured road she stood and looked up the great white way. A voice spoke to her like a great rushing of wind. "Maiden," it said, "so far and no further." And a feeling akin to fear came over her; but not fear, for she knew not what guilt was. And the voice spoke again. "Go down this bow back to the earth, and do the work that is to be done by you. Be of use to your fellows." And the Queen turned and went her way down the great road. The air was full of voices, glad voices, such that the Queen had never heard before—full of a joy that made her heart leap to hear. But she could see no one. Till at last she came back to the green earth, late in the afternoon. For a moment, above her, she could see the great span of the rainbow, and then it vanished into the clear air, and the Queen was alone in the little valley. There it was already dusk, though the sky above the long down before her was still golden with the rays of the sun that had sunk behind it.