“Bravely done!” called the mountebanks, in delight, and ran alongside the car, leaping and tumbling and grotesquely showing their delight. “Bravely done! Tell the people--bid the people come!” So Peter called again, and yet again, at the full strength of his little voice. And it seemed to him that the people surely listened, and it was a delight and a flattery to be the one voice in the great procession, save only the music’s voice. At last, for one moment it chanced that the bands ceased altogether their playing, so that there was an instant of almost silence. “_Husks, husks, husks!_” he cried, with all his might. And as he did that, thin and clear through the silence, vexed somewhat by the voices of the people,--now barks, now whines, now bellows, now words,--Peter caught a little wandering melody, as though a bird’s singing were turning into words:-- “_Open, world, your trembling petals slowly, Here one, there one, natal to its hour_....” and in the midst of that motley throng, Peter, looking down, saw the poet whom he had left on the hill-top, now wandering alone and singing his message to his lute. “Oh, the king! Oh, _my_ king!” cried little Peter, as if he had had a great wound. “What now, my little trumpeter?” asked the carnival king. “Not you--_not_ you!” cried Peter. “Oh, set me down,--set me down. Oh, what have I done?” “How _now_, little Trumpet?” cried the carnival king. But Peter, instead of stretching out his little body, slim and trumpet-graceful, turned and fell at the king’s feet in the car and slipped from his grasp and scrambled through the branching green and reached the street. There, in the wonder and then the mockery of the people, he began struggling to free himself from the ruffles of cloth-of-gold about his body. Some laughed, some ran from him as if he were mad, and some, wishing for themselves the golden ruffles, helped him to pull them off and to strip down the clinging golden stocking that bound his limbs. And then, being close to the city gates, little Peter ran, all naked as he was, without the gates and on to the empty road. And he ran sobbing out his heart:-- “Oh, my king! I would have told them that the world is beginning--but, instead I have told them only to get them husks!” Now the poet, who had seen it all--and who understood--ceased his song and made his way as quickly as might be for the press of the people, and ran after Peter, and fared along the road beside him, trying to comfort him. But the little lad might not be comforted, and he only cried out again:-- “The king--the king! I would have given them his message--and I bade them only to get them husks!” So the poet--who understood--said no word at all, but he shielded Peter with his mantle; and then he took his lute and walked beside the little lad, singing.