nt girl dancing with the moon; but
in each case it was, somehow, as absurd as Alice in Wonderland, yet as
grave and kind as a love story. At last, however, the thick crowd began
to thin itself. Couples strolled away into the garden-walks, or began to
drift towards that end of the building where stood smoking, in huge pots
like fish-kettles, some hot and scented mixtures of old ale or wine.
Above all these, upon a sort of black framework on the roof of the
house, roared in its iron basket a gigantic bonfire, which lit up the
land for miles. It flung the homely effect of firelight over the face
of vast forests of grey or brown, and it seemed to fill with warmth even
the emptiness of upper night. Yet this also, after a time, was allowed
to grow fainter; the dim groups gathered more and more round the great
cauldrons, or passed, laughing and clattering, into the inner passages
of that ancient house. Soon there were only some ten loiterers in the
garden; soon only four. Finally the last stray merry-maker ran into the
house whooping to his companions. The fire faded, and the slow, strong
stars came out. And the seven strange men were left alone, like seven
stone statues on their chairs of stone. Not one of them had spoken a
word.

They seemed in no haste to do so, but heard in silence the hum of
insects and the distant song of one bird. Then Sunday spoke, but so
dreamily that he might have been continuing a conversation rather than
beginning one.

"We will eat and drink later," he said. "Let us remain together a
little, we who have loved each other so sadly, and have fought so long.
I seem to remember only centuries of heroic war, in which you were
always heroes--epic on epic, iliad on iliad, and you always brothers
in arms. Whether it was but recently (for time is nothing), or at the
beginning of the world, I sent you out to war. I sat in the darkness,
where there is not any created thing, and to you I was only a voice
commanding valour and an unnatural virtue. You heard the voice in the
dark, and you never heard it again. The sun in heaven denied it, the
earth and sky denied it, all human wisdom denied it. And when I met you
in the daylight I denied it myself."

Syme stirred sharply in his seat, but otherwise there was silence, and
the incomprehensible went on.

"But you were men. You did not forget your secret honour, though the
whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear it out of you. I knew
how near you were t