The Under Folk
"What ho! Ulf."
"What ho! yourself," said Ulfin, and approaching the window spoke in whispers. Two minutes later the young Cavalry Officer who had leaned out of the window gave an order, and almost at once some magnificent Sea Horses, richly caparisoned, came out from under an arched gateway. The three children were mounted on these, and the crowd which had collected in the street seemed to find it most amusing to see people in fetter-tails riding on the chargers of the Horse Marines. But their laughter was not ill-natured. And the horses were indeed a boon to the weary tails of the amateur seals.
Riding along the bottom of the sea was a wonderful experience—but soon the open country was left behind and they began to go up ways cut in the heart of the rock—ways long and steep, and lighted, as all that great Underworld was, with phosphorescent light.
When they had been traveling for some hours and the children were beginning to think that you could perhaps have too much even of such an excellent thing as Sea Horse exercise, the phosphorescent lights suddenly stopped, and yet the sea was not dark. There seemed to be a light ahead, and it got stronger and stronger as they advanced, and presently it streamed down on them from shallow water above their heads.
"We leave the Sea Horses here," said Ulfin, "they cannot live in the air. Come."
They dismounted and swam up. At least Ulfin and the Princess swam and the others held hands and were pulled by the two swimmers. Almost at once their heads struck the surface of the water, and there they were, on the verge of a rocky shore. They landed, and walked—if you can call what seals do walking—across a ridge of land, then plunged into a landlocked lake that lay beyond.
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