They heard, too, the gurgling breathing of a great
beast, and knew that the dinosaurus, too, was returning to his own
place.
Only Hermes had time, since one flies more swiftly than one
swims, to hover above them for one moment, and to whisper with
a mischievous laugh:
"In fourteen days from now, at the Temple of Strange Stones."
"What's the secret of the ring?" gasped Mabel.
"The ring is the heart of the magic," said Hermes. "Ask at the
moonrise on the fourteenth day, and you shall know all."
With that he waved the snowy caduceus and rose in the air
supported by his winged feet. And as he went the seven reflected
moons died out and a chill wind began to blow, a grey light grew
and grew, the birds stirred and twittered, and the marble slipped
away from the children like a skin that shrivels in fire, and they
were statues no more, but flesh and blood children as they used to
be, standing knee-deep in brambles and long coarse grass. There
was no smooth lawn, no marble steps, no seven-mooned fish-pond.
The dew lay thick on the grass and the brambles, and it was very
cold.
"We ought to have gone with them," said Mabel with chattering
teeth. "We can't swim now we re not marble. And I suppose this is
the island?"
It was and they couldn't swim.
They knew it. One always knows those sort of things somehow
without trying. For instance, you know perfectly that you can't fly.
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