She also made him tell her the story of how he had got lost and of all the wonderful things that had happened to him in his wanderings in the wilderness--the people of the Mirage, and old Jacob and the savages, the great forest, the serpent, the owl, the wild horses and wild man, and the black people of the sky.

But it was of the Mirage and the procession of lovely beings about which he spoke most and questioned her.
"Do you think it was all a dream ?" he kept asking her, "the Queen and all those people ?" She was vexed at the question, and turning her face away, refused to answer him.

For though at all other times, and when he spoke of other things, she was gentle and loving in her manner, the moment he spoke of the Queen of the Mirage and the gifts she had bestowed on him, she became impatient, and rebuked him for saying such foolish things.
At length she spoke and told him that it was a dream, a very very idle dream, a dream that was not worth dreaming; that he must never speak of it again, never think of it, but forget it, just as he had forgotten all the other vain silly dreams he had ever had.

And having said this much a little sharply, she smiled again and fondled him, and promised that when he next slept he should have a good dream, one worth the dreaming, and worth remembering and talking about.
She held him away from her, seating him on her knees, to look at his face, and said, "For oh, dear little Martin, you are lovely and sweet to look at, and you are mine, my own sweet child, and so long as you live with me on the hills, and love me and eall me mother, you shall be happy, and everything you see, sleeping and waking, shall seem strange and beautiful." It was quite true that he was sweet to look at, very pretty with his rosy-white skin deepening to red on his cheeks; and his hair curling all over his head was of a bright golden chestnut colour; and his eyes were a very bright blue, and looked keen and straight at you just like a bird's eyes, that seem to be thinking of nothing, and yet seeing everything.
After this Martin was eager to go to sleep at once and have the promised dream, but his very eagerness kept him wide awake all day, and even after going to bed in that dim chamber in the heart of the hill, it was a long time before he dropped off.

But he did not know that he had fallen asleep: it seemed to him that he was very wide awake, and that he heard a voice speaking in the chamber, and that he started up to listen to it.
"Do you not know that there are things just as strange underground as above it ?" said the voice.
Martin could not see the speaker, but he answered quite boldly: "No--there's nothing underground except earth and worms and roots.
I've seen it when they've been digging." "Oh, but there is!" said the voice.