man."

"He's not much of a rower" said Diamond--"paddling first with one fin
and then with the other."

"Now look here!" said North Wind.

And she flashed like a dragon-fly across the water, whose surface
rippled and puckered as she passed. The next moment the man in the boat
glanced about him, and bent to his oars. The boat flew over the rippling
water. Man and boat and river were awake. The same instant almost, North
Wind perched again upon the river wall.

"How did you do that?" asked Diamond.

"I blew in his face," answered North Wind. "I don't see how that could
do it," said Diamond. "I daresay not. And therefore you will say you
don't believe it could."

"No, no, dear North Wind. I know you too well not to believe you."

"Well, I blew in his face, and that woke him up."

"But what was the good of it?"

"Why! don't you see? Look at him--how he is pulling. I blew the mist out
of him."

"How was that?"

"That is just what I cannot tell you."

"But you did it."

"Yes. I have to do ten thousand things without being able to tell how."

"I don't like that," said Diamond.

He was staring after the boat. Hearing no answer, he looked down to the
wall.

North Wind was gone. Away across the river went a long ripple--what
sailors call a cat's paw. The man in the boat was putting up a sail. The
moon was coming to herself on the edge of a great cloud, and the sail
began to shine white. Diamond rubbed his eyes, and wondered what it was
all about. Things seemed going on around him, and all to understand
each other, but he could make nothing of it. So he put his hands in his
pockets, and went in to have his tea. The night was very hot, for the
wind had fallen again.

"You don't seem very well to-night, Diamond," said his mother.

"I am quite well, mother," returned Diamond, who was only puzzled.

"I think you had better go to bed," she added.

"Very well, mother," he answered.

He stopped for one moment to look out of the window. Above the moon the
clouds were going different ways. Somehow or other this troubled him,
but, notwithstanding, he was soon fast asleep.

He woke in the middle of the night and the darkness. A terrible noise
was rumbling overhead, like the rolling beat of great drums echoing
through a brazen vault. The roof of the loft in which he lay had no
ceiling; only the tiles were between him and the sky. For a while he
could not come quite awake, for the noise kept beating him down, so th