"I like that. Let us go."
The Shadows went through the same ceremonies and preparations as
before; during which, the young Shadow before-mentioned contrived to
make such grimaces as kept the baby in terror, and the queen in the
nursery, till all was ready. Then with a bound that doubled him up
against the ceiling, and a kick of his legs six feet out behind him, he
vanished through the nursery door, and reached the king's bed-chamber
just in time to take his place with the last who were melting through
the window in the rear of the litter, and settling down upon the snow
beneath. Away they went as before, a gliding blackness over the white
carpet. And it was Christmas-eve.
When they came in sight of the mountain-lake, the king saw that it was
crowded over its whole surface with a changeful intermingling of
Shadows. They were all talking and listening alternately, in pairs,
trios, and groups of every size. Here and there large companies were
absorbed in attention to one elevated above the rest, not in a pulpit,
or on a platform, but on the stilts of his own legs, elongated for the
nonce. The aurora, right overhead, lighted up the lake and the sides of
the mountains, by sending down from the zenith, nearly to the surface
of the lake, great folded vapours, luminous with all the colours of a
faint rainbow.
Many, however, as the words were that passed on all sides, not a shadow
of a sound reached the ears of the king: the shadow-speech could not
enter his corporeal organs.
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