,
else how did I come to love you? How could you know how to put on such a
beautiful face if you did not love me and the rest? No. You may sink
as many ships as you like, and I won't say another word. I can't say I
shall like to see it, you know."

"That's quite another thing," said North Wind; and as she spoke she gave
one spring from the roof of the hay-loft, and rushed up into the clouds,
with Diamond on her left arm close to her heart. And as if the clouds
knew she had come, they burst into a fresh jubilation of thunderous
light. For a few moments, Diamond seemed to be borne up through the
depths of an ocean of dazzling flame; the next, the winds were writhing
around him like a storm of serpents. For they were in the midst of
the clouds and mists, and they of course took the shapes of the wind,
eddying and wreathing and whirling and shooting and dashing about like
grey and black water, so that it was as if the wind itself had taken
shape, and he saw the grey and black wind tossing and raving most madly
all about him. Now it blinded him by smiting him upon the eyes; now it
deafened him by bellowing in his ears; for even when the thunder came he
knew now that it was the billows of the great ocean of the air dashing
against each other in their haste to fill the hollow scooped out by the
lightning; now it took his breath quite away by sucking it from his body
with the speed of its rush. But he did not mind it. He only gasped first
and then laughed, for the arm of North Wind was about him, and he was
leaning against her bosom. It is quite impossible for me to describe
what he saw. Did you ever watch a great wave shoot into a winding
passage amongst rocks? If you ever did, you would see that the water
rushed every way at once, some of it even turning back and opposing
the rest; greater confusion you might see nowhere except in a crowd of
frightened people. Well, the wind was like that, except that it went
much faster, and therefore was much wilder, and twisted and shot and
curled and dodged and clashed and raved ten times more madly than
anything else in creation except human passions. Diamond saw the threads
of the lady's hair streaking it all. In parts indeed he could not tell
which was hair and which was black storm and vapour. It seemed sometimes
that all the great billows of mist-muddy wind were woven out of the
crossing lines of North Wind's infinite hair, sweeping in endless
intertwistings. And Diamond felt as the