The children found no difficulty in breathing, and it was as easy to walk as it is on land in a high wind. They could not run, but they walked as fast as they could to the place where they had left the Princess pouring out the water for all the rivers in all the world. And as they went, one of them said, “Oh don’t, don’t tell it was me. You don’t know what punishments they may have here.” The others said of course they wouldn’t tell. But the one who had touched the sky felt that it was despised and disgraced. They found the pedestal, but what had been the pool was only part of the enormous sea, and so was the little marble channel. The Princess was not there, and they began to look for her, more and more anxious and wretched. “It’s all your fault,” said Francis to the guilty one who had broken the sky by touching it; and Bernard said, “You shut up, can’t you?” It was a long time before they found their Princess, and when they did find her they hardly knew her. She came swimming toward them, and she was wearing her tail, and a cuirass and helmet of the most beautiful mother-of-pearl—thin scales of it overlapping; and the crest on her helmet was one great pearl, as big as a billiard ball. She carried something over her arm. “Here you are,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you. The future is full of danger. The water has got in.” “Yes, we noticed that,” said Bernard. And Mavis said: “Please, it was us. We touched the sky.” “Will they punish us?” asked Cathay. “There are no punishments here,” said the pearly Princess gravely, “only the consequences of your action. Our great defense against the Under Folk is that thin blue dome which you have broken. It can only be broken from the inside. Our enemies were powerless to destroy it. But now they may attack us at any moment. I am going to command my troops. Will you come too?” “Rather,” said Reuben, and the others, somewhat less cordially, agreed. They cheered up a little when the Princess went on. “It’s the only way to make you safe. There are four posts vacant on my staff, and I have brought you the uniforms that go with the appointments.” She unfolded five tails, and four little pearly coats like her own, with round pearls for buttons, pearls as big as marbles. “Put these on quickly,” she said, “they are enchanted coats, given by Neptune himself to an ancestor of ours. By pressing the third button from the top you can render yourself invisible. The third button below that will make you visible again when you wish it, and the last button of all will enable you to become intangible as well as invisible.” “Intangible?” said Cathay. “Unfeelable, so you’re quite safe.” “But there are only four coats,” said Francis. “That is so,” said the Princess. “One of you will have to take its chance with the Boy Scouts. Which is it to be?”