ines. Where the brook seemed to
reenter the wood on the opposite side, stood two immense pines, like
sentinels, and such they became to me; and they looked grim and
threatening, with their huge arms reaching over the gateway. I drew my
boat up on the boggy shore at the foot of a solitary tamarack, into
which I climbed as high as I could to look over the wood beyond.

Never shall I forget what I saw from that swaying look-out. Before me
was the mountain, perhaps five miles away, covered with dense forest to
within a few hundred feet of the summit, which showed bare rock with
firs clinging in the clefts and on the tables, and which was crowned by
a walled city, the parapet of whose walls cut with a sharp, straight
line against the sky, and beyond showed spire and turret and the tops of
tall trees. The walls must have been at least a hundred and fifty feet
high, and I could see here and there between the group of firs traces of
a road coming down the mountain-side. And I heard one of those mocking
voices say, "The city of silence!"--nothing more. I felt strongly
tempted to start on a flight through the air towards the city, and why I
did not launch forth on the impulse I know not. My blood rushed through
my veins with maddest energy, and my brain seemed to have been replaced
by some ethereal substance, and to be capable of floating me off as if
it were a balloon. Yet I clung and looked, my whole soul in my eyes, and
had no thought of losing the spectacle for an instant, even were it to
reach the city itself. The glorious glamour of that place and moment,
who can comprehend it? The wind swung my tree-top to and fro, and I
climbed up until the tree bent with my weight like a twig under a
bird's.

Presently I heard bells and strains of music, as though all the military
bands in the city were coming together on the walls; and the sounds rose
and fell with the wind,--one moment entirely lost, another full and
triumphant. Then I heard the sound of hunting-horns and the baying of a
pack of hounds, deep-mouthed, as if a hunting-party were coming down the
mountain-side. Nearer and nearer they came, and I heard merry laughing
and shouting as they swept through the valley. I feared for a moment
that they would find me there, and drive me, intruding, from the
enchanted land.

But I must fathom the mystery, let what would come. I descended the
tree, and when I had reached the boat again I found the whole thing
changed. I understood