mongst all nations. And already, by signs audible
through the darkness, by snortings and tramplings, our angry horses, that
knew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with delay. Wherefore _was_
it that we delayed? We waited for a secret word, that should bear witness
to the hope of nations, as now accomplished for ever. At midnight the
secret word arrived; which word was--Waterloo and Recovered Christendom!
The dreadful word shone by its own light; before us it went; high above our
leaders' heads it rode, and spread a golden light over the paths which we
traversed. Every city, at the presence of the secret word, threw open its
gates to receive us. The rivers were silent as we crossed. All the infinite
forests, as we ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secret
word. And the darkness comprehended it.

Two hours after midnight we reached a mighty minster. Its gates, which rose
to the clouds, were closed. But when the dreadful word, that rode before
us, reached them with its golden light, silently they moved back upon their
hinges; and at a flying gallop our equipage entered the grand aisle of the
cathedral. Headlong was our pace; and at every altar, in the little chapels
and oratories to the right hand and left of our course, the lamps, dying or
sickening, kindled anew in sympathy with the secret word that was flying
past. Forty leagues we might have run in the cathedral, and as yet no
strength of morning light had reached us, when we saw before us the aerial
galleries of the organ and the choir. Every pinnacle of the fretwork, every
station of advantage amongst the traceries, was crested by white-robed
choristers, that sang deliverance; that wept no more tears, as once their
fathers had wept; but at intervals that sang together to the generations,
saying--

"Chaunt the deliverer's praise in every tongue,"

and receiving answers from afar,

--"such as once in heaven and earth were sung."

And of their chaunting was no end; of our headlong pace was neither pause
nor remission.

Thus, as we ran like torrents--thus, as we swept with bridal rapture over
the Campo Santo[1] of the cathedral graves--suddenly we became aware of
a vast necropolis rising upon the far-off horizon--a city of sepulchres,
built within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that rested from
their feuds on earth. Of purple granite was the necropolis; yet, in the
first minute, it lay like a purple stain upon the horizon--so