And Angelo, looking up in amazement, saw the face of an angel, and the
bow dropped from his fingers.

When the music ceased, the children broke their ring and ran to Angelo
where he lay upon the grass. They wondered to see him so still and
pale, yet because his face was smiling they were not afraid.

"He is weary," they cried; "the good friar has fallen asleep--perhaps
he has fainted. Let us run and call help for him."

But they did not understand that the messenger of Holy Death had
passed among them and called Angelo in the odour of sanctity.

[Illustration]

THE SAD SHEPHERD

I

DARKNESS

Out of the Valley of Gardens, where a film of new-fallen snow lay
smooth as feathers on the breast of a dove, the ancient Pools of
Solomon looked up into the night sky with dark, tranquil eyes,
wide-open and passive, reflecting the crisp stars and the small, round
moon. The full springs, overflowing on the hillside, melted their way
through the field of white in winding channels, and along their course
the grass was green even in the dead of winter.

But the sad shepherd walked far above the friendly valley, in a region
where ridges of gray rock welted and scarred the back of the earth,
like wounds of half-forgotten strife and battles long ago. The
solitude was forbidding and disquieting; the keen air that searched
the wanderer had no pity in it; and the myriad glances of the night
were curiously cold.

His flock straggled after him. The sheep, weather beaten and dejected,
followed the path with low heads nodding from side to side, as if they
had travelled far and found little pasture. The black, lop-eared goats
leaped upon the rocks, restless and ravenous, tearing down the tender
branches and leaves of the dwarf oaks and wild olives. They reared up
against the twisted trunks and crawled and scrambled among the boughs.
It was like a company of gray downcast friends and a troop of merry
little black devils following the sad shepherd afar off.

He walked looking on the ground, paying small heed to them. Now and
again, when the sound of pattering feet and panting breath and the
rustling and rending among the copses fell too far behind, he drew out
his shepherd's pipe and blew a strain of music, shrill and plaintive,
quavering and lamenting through the hollow night. He waited while the
troops of gray and black scuffled and bounded and trotted near to him.
Then he dropped the pipe into its place again and strode