[Illustration: HE CAUGHT HER IN HIS ARMS AND SPRANG INTO THE CHARIOT.]
But her voice was very shaky and too faint for Mother Ceres to hear, for by this time she was many thousands of miles away making the corn grow in another country.
No sooner did Proserpina begin to cry out than the strange man leaped to the ground; he caught her in his arms and sprang into the chariot, then he shook the reins and shouted to the two black horses to set off. They began to gallop so fast that it was just like flying, and in less than a minute Proserpina had lost sight of the sunny fields where she and her mother had always lived.
She screamed and screamed and all the beautiful flowers fell out of her apron to the ground.
But Mother Ceres was too far away to know what was happening to her little daughter.
"Why are you so frightened, my little girl?" said the strange man, and he tried to soften his rough voice. "I promise not to do you any harm. I see you have been gathering flowers? Wait till we come to my palace and I will give you a garden full of prettier flowers than these, all made of diamonds and pearls and rubies. Can you guess who I am? They call me Pluto, and I am the King of the mines where all the diamonds and rubies and all the gold and silver are found: they all belong to me. Do you see this lovely crown on my head? I will let you have it to play with. Oh, I think we are going to be very good friends when we get out of this troublesome sunshine."
"Let me go home," sobbed Proserpina, "let me go home."
"My home is better than your mother's," said King Pluto. "It is a palace made of gold, with crystal windows and with diamond lamps instead of sunshine; and there is a splendid throne; if you like you may sit on it and be my little Queen, and I will sit on the footstool."
"I do not care for golden palaces and thrones," sobbed Proserpina. "O mother, mother! Take me back to my mother."
But King Pluto only shouted to his horses to go faster.
"You are very foolish, Proserpina," he said, rather crossly. "I am doing all I can to make you happy, and I want very much to have a merry little girl to run upstairs and downstairs in my palace and make it brighter with her laughter. This is all I ask you to do for King Pluto."