WHO FOLLOWED THE PIPER
"Yes, I will help you," said the bent man with the lantern. Saying that he lifted the sickle off his shoulder.
"Know," said he, "that I was once Saturn, who carried the sickle across men's fields. I, too, was one of the gods of the old time. Now I am the Man in the Moon."
"Oh, and will you let me rest under your lantern?" asked Golden Hood.
"I will let you rest within my sickle. No one can cross it to come to touch you," said the Man in the Moon in his far-off voice.
He laid his sickle upon the ground in that space where there were no trees. Golden Hood laid herself down inside the hook of the sickle, and the lantern shone above her. She heard the rustling come nearer, but she knew that nothing could reach across the sickle inside of which she lay. Silently, with his lantern beside him, the Man in the Moon who was once Saturn stood above her. And so, in the Dark Forest, Golden Hood slept.
69
