ss. A rainbow formed just as Giles approached the plain, and the
little birds came out to shake the rain from their feathers.

Now, in the secure shelter of an overhanging cliff, were to be found
those people of the plain who had fled to the valley for refuge; and
when these poor worried folk saw Giles coming down the valley, they
recalled the prophecy that a king should come to them out of the valley,
and hailed Giles as their king. Best of all, Phyllida herself ran out,
and threw her arms about her husband. As for the robbers, the storm had
overwhelmed them and swept them all into the river. There, I am glad to
say, they turned into little fishes.

When the Shepherd of Clouds found that Giles had escaped after making
all this disturbance, he was very angry, and rushed to his lightning
closet to hurl some thunderbolts at him. When he got to the closet,
however, he found that Giles had used every single bolt, and that the
cupboard was empty. Consequently, he had to wait till the end of summer
before he could get some new lightning, and by that time, he was so busy
arranging the autumn frosts that he quite forgot about Giles.

So Giles and Phyllida became King and Queen of the people of the plain
and lived happily ever after.

THE CITY UNDER THE SEA

[Illustration: A black ship in the background, persuded by another ship
in the foreground.]

Once upon a time, in a country of mountains which bordered upon the sea,
dwelt a rich merchant who had three sons. The eldest and the second-born
were his joy, for they were merchants too, and remained at his side; but
the youngest often caused him much anxiety. Not that this youngest son
was a wild or a bad lad; but love of the sea and desire for adventure
ran like fire in his veins, and he could not bring himself to sit beside
his father and his brothers in the counting-house.

Weary at length of the constant reproaches of his kinsmen, he turned
away one night from his father's house and joined a ship as a common
sailor. Clad in sailor blue, wearing a little cap, a blouse open at the
throat, and trousers cut wide at the bottoms, the runaway lad sailed
over the sea to foreign lands and isles. And as the years passed, one by
one, and brought no tidings of him, his father and his brothers gave him
up for lost.

Now the King of the country in which the rich merchant and his son dwelt
loved rare gems and precious stones more than anything else in the
world. Hidden se