nd was enough to transport all who
listened, and to make them know what joy is and peace. The little
Pilgrim wept for happiness to hear her brother's voice; but in the midst
of it her ear was caught by another sound,--a faint cry which tingled up
from the darkness like a note of a muffled bell,--and she turned from the
joy and the light, and flung out her arms and her little voice towards
him who was stumbling upon the dark mountains. And 'Come,' she cried,
'come, come!' forgetting all things save that one was there in the
darkness, while here was light and peace.

'It is nearer,' said her guide, hearing, even in the midst of his triumph
song, that faint and distant cry; and he took her hand and drew her back,
for she was upon the edge of the precipice, gazing into the black depths,
which revealed nothing save the needles of the awful rocks and sheer
descents below. 'The moment will come,' he said, 'when we can help; but
it is not yet.'

Her heart was in the depths with him who was coming, whom she knew not
save that he was coming, toiling upwards towards the light; and it seemed
to her that she could not contain herself, nor wait till he should
appear, nor draw back from the edge, where she might hold out her hands
to him and save him some single step, if no more. But presently her heart
returned to her brother who stood by her side, and who was delivered,
and with whom it was meet that all should rejoice, since he had fought
and conquered, and reached the land of light. 'Oh,' she said, 'it is long
to wait while he is still upon these dark mountains. Tell me how it came
to you to find the way.'

He turned to her with a smile, though his ear too was intent, and his
heart fixed upon the traveller in the darkness, and began to tell her his
tale to beguile the time of waiting, and to hold within bounds the pity
that filled her heart. He told her that he was one of many who came from
the pleasant earth together, out of many countries and tongues; and how
they had gone here and there each man to a different city; and how they
had crossed each other's paths coming and going, yet never found rest for
their feet; and how there was a little relief in every change, and one
sought that which another left; and how they wandered round and round
over all the vast and endless plain, until at length in revolt from every
other way, they had chosen a spot upon the slope of a hill, and built
there a new city, if perhaps something better