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“Can that be true that loves the night?” said the king.

“The darkness is the nurse of light,” answered the Shadow.

“Can that be true which mocks at forms?” said the king.

“Truth rides abroad in shapeless storms,” answered the Shadow.

“Ha! ha!” thought Ralph Rinkelmann, “it rhymes. The Shadow caps my questions with his answers. Very strange!” And he grew thoughtful again.

The Shadow was the first to resume.

“Please your majesty, may we present our petition?”

“By all means,” replied the king. “I am not well enough to receive it in proper state.”

“Never mind, your majesty. We do not care for much ceremony; and indeed none of us are quite well at present. The subject of our petition weighs upon us.”

“Go on,” said the king.

“Sire,” began the Shadow, “our very existence is in danger. The various sorts of artificial light, both in houses and in men, women, and children, threaten to end our being. The use and the disposition of gaslights, especially high in the centres, blind the eyes by which alone we can be perceived. We are all but banished from towns. We are driven into villages and lonely houses, chiefly old farm-houses, out of which, even, our friends the fairies are fast disappearing. We therefore petition our king, by the power of his art, to restore us to our rights in the house itself, and in the hearts of its inhabitants.”

“But,” said the king, “you frighten the children.”

“Very seldom, your majesty; and then only for their good. We seldom seek to frighten anybody. We mostly want to make people silent and thoughtful; to awe them a little, your majesty.”

“You are much more likely to make them laugh,” said the king.

“Are we?” said the Shadow.

And approaching the king one step, he stood quite still for a moment. The diamond of the king’s sceptre shot out a vivid flame of violet light, and the king stared at the Shadow in silence, and his lip quivered. He never told what he saw then; but he would say:

“Just fancy what it might be if some flitting thoughts were to persist in staying to be looked at.”

“It is only,” resumed the Shadow, “when our thoughts are not fixed upon any particular object, that our bodies are subject to all the vagaries of elemental influences. Generally, amongst worldly men and frivolous women, we only attach ourselves to some article of furniture or of dress; and they never doubt that we are mere foolish and vague results of the dashing of the waves of the light against the solid forms of which their houses are full. We do not care to tell them the truth, for they would never see it. But let the worldly man–or the frivolous woman–and then–“

At each of the pauses indicated, the mass of Shadows throbbed and heaved with emotion; but they soon settled again into comparative stillness. Once more the Shadow addressed himself to speak. But suddenly they all looked up, and the king, following their gaze, saw that the aurora had begun to pale.

“The moon is rising,” said the Shadow. “As soon as she looks over the mountains into the valley, we must be gone, for we have plenty to do by the moon; we are powerful in her light. But if your majesty will come here to-morrow night, your majesty may learn a great deal more about us, and judge for himself whether it be fit to accord our petition; for then will be our grand annual assembly, in which we report to our chiefs the things we have attempted, and the good or bad success we have had.”

“If you send for me,” returned the king, “I will come.”

Ere the Shadow could reply, the tip of the moon’s crescent horn peeped up from behind an icy pinnacle, and one slender ray fell on the lake. It shone upon no Shadows. Ere the eye of the king could again seek the earth after beholding the first brightness of the moon’s resurrection, they had vanished; and the surface of the lake glittered gold and blue in the pale moonlight.