And now it was night, and the vessel lay waiting, her sails gleaming green-white in the moonlight, her ladder shrouds gently swaying against the pale and starry sky. When came the ebb of the midnight tide, the anchors were weighed, the great sails trimmed to the breeze, and the vessel piloted forth to the measureless plain of the sea. Now it came to pass, as the great ship sped upon her furrowed way, that Porphyrio took it into his head to visit the Fair of the Golden Bear, and fled before the wind to the festival city. Little by little--for the air was but light--the ship left behind her the blue of the deeps, and entered the green waters of the shallows. Suddenly there was a cry of “Land Ho!” and from afar, over the landward hastening waves, Porphyrio beheld the great tower of the Fair. A giant golden image of a bear, standing erect, crowned the high tower-top, and shone dully bright above the haze. At sundown the Prince, accompanied by his mariners, found himself in the midst of the great Fair, in the very heart of the din, the medley of outlandish costumes, the babel of strange tongues, and the shrill cries of the shopmen and the merchants. Surely there was never such a market place as the Fair of the Golden Bear! Everything in the world was there to be bought and sold. At one booth a venerable man in a scholar’s gown and velvet cap sold words--rare words, rich words, strange words, beautiful words, and drove a brisk trade with a crowd of poets and lovers; at another an old woman in green sold rosy glasses to those who were at outs with the world; and at still another a joyous fellow in blue offered sunbeams, which he had caught in a mirror and imprisoned in bits of magic glass. Porphyrio was quite delighted with the sunbeams, which shone night and day, like diamonds aflame with golden fires. “The Lady Liria will surely be pleased with one of these,” thought he, and purchased the finest of all. Now it came to pass that, as he walked about the Fair with his retinue of sailor-men, Porphyrio caught sight of a rustic fellow in brown corduroys who was carrying a sea bird in a wicker cage. And because he loved the wild folk of the sea, the Prince said to the countryman:-- “Good friend, whither go you with your bird?” “To the animal merchants, sir,” replied the fellow. “’Tis a wild bird which I found in my field on a morning after a storm. Only look, sir; it wears a circle of feathers on its head, for all the world like a crown.” “Why, so it does!” said the young Prince. “Come, will you sell him to me?” “Oh yes, indeed, sir,” replied the countryman. “’Tis yours for a florin of gold and a penny of silver.” And he held out his hand for the sum.