self, and
how you lived and what the world was like when you were free!"

"Do you see any green in my eye?" said the Cockatrice.

"I do, indeed!" said Beppo. "I never saw anything so green in all the
world."

"That's all right, then!" said the Cockatrice. "Climb up and look in,
and you will see what the world was like when I was young."

So Beppo climbed and scrambled, and slipped and clung, till he found
himself on the margin of a wonderful green lake, which was but the
opening into the whole eye of the Cockatrice.

And as soon as Beppo looked, he had lost his heart for ever to the world
he saw there. It was there, quite real before him: a whole world full
of living and moving things--the world before the trouble of man came to
it.

"I see green hills, and fields, and rocks, and trees," cried Beppo, "and
among them a lot of little Cockatrices are playing!"

"They were my brothers and sisters; I remember them," said the
Cockatrice. "I have them all in my mind's eye. Call them--perhaps they
will come and talk to you; you will find them very nice and friendly."

"They are too far off," said Beppo, "they cannot hear me."

"Ah, yes," murmured the Cockatrice, "memory is a wonderful thing!"

When Beppo came down again he was quite giddy, and lost in wonder and
joy over the beautiful green world the Cockatrice had shown him. "I like
that better than this!" said he.

"So do I," said the Cockatrice. "But perhaps, when my tail gets free, I
shall feel better."

One morning he said to Beppo: "I do really begin to feel my tail. It is
somewhere away down the hill yonder. Go and look out for me, and tell me
if you can see it moving."

So Beppo went to the mouth of the cave, and looked out towards the city,
over all the rocks and ridges and goat-pastures and slopes of vine that
lay between.

Suddenly, as he looked, the steeple of the cathedral tottered, and down
fell its weathercock and two of its pinnacles, and half the chimneys of
the town snapped off their tops. All that distance away Beppo could hear
the terrified screams of the inhabitants as they ran out of their houses
in terror.

"I've done it!" cried the Cockatrice, from within the cave.

"But you mustn't do that!" exclaimed Beppo in horror.

"Mustn't do what?" inquired the Cockatrice.

"You mustn't wag your tail! You don't know what you are doing!"

"Oh, master!" wailed the Cockatrice; "mayn't I? For the first time this
thousand years I have felt young