I stood and watched the last gleam of the white leopardess melt away,then turned to follow my guide--but reluctantly.What had I to do with sleep?Surely reason was the same in every world,and what reason could there be in going to sleep with the dead,when the hour was calling the live man?Besides,no one would wake me,and how could I be certain of waking early--of waking at all?--the sleepers in that house let morning glide into noon,and noon into night,nor ever stirred!I murmured,but followed,for I knew not what else to do.
The librarian walked on in silence,and I walked silent as he.Time and space glided past us.The sun set;it began to grow dark,and I felt in the air the spreading cold of the chamber of death.My heart sank lower and lower.I began to lose sight of the lean,long-coated figure,and at length could no more hear his swishing stride through the heather.But then I heard instead the slow-flapping wings of the raven;and,at intervals,now a firefly,now a gleaming butterfly rose into the rayless air.
By and by the moon appeared,slow crossing the far horizon.
"You are tired,are you not,Mr.Vane?"said the raven,alighting on a stone."You must make acquaintance with the horse that will carry you in the morning!"He gave a strange whistle through his long black beak.A spot appeared on the face of the half-risen moon.To my ears came presently the drumming of swift,soft-galloping hoofs,and in a minute or two,out of the very disc of the moon,low-thundered the terrible horse.His mane flowed away behind him like the crest of a wind-fighting wave,torn seaward in hoary spray,and the whisk of his tail kept blinding the eye of the moon.Nineteen hands he seemed,huge of bone,tight of skin,hard of muscle--a steed the holy Death himself might choose on which to ride abroad and slay!
The moon seemed to regard him with awe;in her scary light he looked a very skeleton,loosely roped together.Terrifically large,he moved with the lightness of a winged insect.As he drew near,his speed slackened,and his mane and tail drifted about him settling.
Now I was not merely a lover of horses,but I loved every horse Isaw.I had never spent money except upon horses,and had never sold a horse.The sight of this mighty one,terrible to look at,woke in me longing to possess him.It was pure greed,nay,rank covetousness,an evil thing in all the worlds.I do not mean that I could have stolen him,but that,regardless of his proper place,I would have bought him if I could.I laid my hands on him,and stroked the protuberant bones that humped a hide smooth and thin,and shiny as satin--so shiny that the very shape of the moon was reflected in it;I fondled his sharp-pointed ears,whispered words in them,and breathed into his red nostrils the breath of a man's life.He in return breathed into mine the breath of a horse's life,and we loved one another.What eyes he had!Blue-filmy like the eyes of the dead,behind each was a glowing coal!The raven,with wings half extended,looked on pleased at my love-making to his magnificent horse.
"That is well!be friends with him,"he said:"he will carry you all the better to-morrow!--Now we must hurry home!"My desire to ride the horse had grown passionate.
"May I not mount him at once,Mr.Raven?"I cried.
"By all means!"he answered."Mount,and ride him home."The horse bent his head over my shoulder lovingly.I twisted my hands in his mane and scrambled onto his back,not without aid from certain protuberant bones.
"He would outspeed any leopard in creation!"I cried.
"Not that way at night,"answered the raven;"the road is difficult.--But come;loss now will be gain then!To wait is harder than to run,and its meed is the fuller.Go on,my son--straight to the cottage.I shall be there as soon as you.It will rejoice my wife's heart to see son of hers on that horse!"I sat silent.The horse stood like a block of marble.
"Why do you linger?"asked the raven.
"I long so much to ride after the leopardess,"I answered,"that Ican scarce restrain myself!"
"You have promised!"
"My debt to the Little Ones appears,I confess,a greater thing than my bond to you.""Yield to the temptation and you will bring mischief upon them--and on yourself also.""What matters it for me?I love them;and love works no evil.Iwill go."
But the truth was,I forgot the children,infatuate with the horse.
Eyes flashed through the darkness,and I knew that Adam stood in his own shape beside me.I knew also by his voice that he repressed an indignation almost too strong for him.
