parents,
my child," he added, turning to Lona, "must come and find you!"

The hour of our departure was at hand. Lona went to the couch of the
mother who had slain her, and kissed her tenderly--then laid herself in
her father's arms.

"That kiss will draw her homeward, my Lona!" said Adam.

"Who were her parents?" asked Lona.

"My father," answered Adam, "is her father also."

She turned and laid her hand in mine.

I kneeled and humbly thanked the three for helping me to die. Lona knelt
beside me, and they all breathed upon us.

"Hark! I hear the sun," said Adam.

I listened: he was coming with the rush as of a thousand times ten
thousand far-off wings, with the roar of a molten and flaming world
millions upon millions of miles away. His approach was a crescendo chord
of a hundred harmonies.

The three looked at each other and smiled, and that smile went floating
heavenward a three-petaled flower, the family's morning thanksgiving.
From their mouths and their faces it spread over their bodies and shone
through their garments. Ere I could say, "Lo, they change!" Adam and
Eve stood before me the angels of the resurrection, and Mara was the
Magdalene with them at the sepulchre. The countenance of Adam was like
lightning, and Eve held a napkin that flung flakes of splendour about
the place.

A wind began to moan in pulsing gusts.

"You hear his wings now!" said Adam; and I knew he did not mean the
wings of the morning.

"It is the great Shadow stirring to depart," he went on. "Wretched
creature, he has himself within him, and cannot rest!"

"But is there not in him something deeper yet?" I asked.

"Without a substance," he answered, "a shadow cannot be--yea, or without
a light behind the substance!"

He listened for a moment, then called out, with a glad smile, "Hark
to the golden cock! Silent and motionless for millions of years has
he stood on the clock of the universe; now at last he is flapping his
wings! now will he begin to crow! and at intervals will men hear him
until the dawn of the day eternal."

I listened. Far away--as in the heart of an aeonian silence, I heard the
clear jubilant outcry of the golden throat. It hurled defiance at
death and the dark; sang infinite hope, and coming calm. It was the
"expectation of the creature" finding at last a voice; the cry of a
chaos that would be a kingdom!

Then I heard a great flapping.

"The black bat is flown!" said Mara.

"Amen, golden cock, b