THE REDEMPTION OF ANTHONY
"I didn't. I just came away to be by myself."
"Oh, if that's the case, perhaps you'd like me to go?"
She considered a moment. "No, I'd just as soon you'd stay—if you won't chatter."
"Humph!"
He relapsed into enforced silence, and she resumed her scrutiny of the water's depths. Shortly she began to speak softly, as if to herself.
"And after awhile the King, who lived in the Palace of Shells, far under the water, grew old and didn't care about anything in the kingdom, so the people threatened to kill him and get a new king. The King went to the Wise Old Woman of the Sea and asked her what to do, and she said that if he could find the Water-Lily Maiden and induce her to give him one drink from her golden goblet, he would grow young again, and all would be well.
"Whereupon the King sent out his courtiers to the end of the kingdom to find her.
68
