Randall's voice came in. "The detachment drove the Germans out of the
wood and chased them a good long way. It was dawn when we stopped and
went back to gather up our hurt and dead. There were a dozen dead,
Germans and us, and a good many hurt, all scattered through that wood
that was full of big trees. We found Drew propped against a very great,
old, fallen tree. He had been struck over the head in the hand-to-hand
fighting and had a cut or two besides. Nothing odd in that, but what was
odd was that he was cherishing a dead German--had his head lying on his
knee! Of course, enemies lying as close as lovers wasn't any novelty!
But Drew had crept some little way to this man, and had tried to stop
his bleeding, all there in the dark, and had given him water, and then
had gathered him into his arms. He said: 'Yes, he was Drew, but he was
one Oswy, too. Yes, that was a German, but it was Lutwyn, too.' He said
they were twin brothers. We were used to men out of their heads, so we
gathered him up and took him on. He wanted us to stop and bury the
German, but there wasn't time for that. The funny thing is that he
certainly isn't out of his head now! Yet he still believes that story,
though he won't tell it to every one...."
The rain beat, the fire burned. "I've tried to get back," said Drew,
"back to Guthlac and the bullock wagon and why we were outlaws. If I
could find even now what we did--if I could get farther back still, to
the point where we decided to do it, and redecide, decide more wisely,
having long light upon it, I think that even now I could change in some
way the whole world! Changing it to Lutwyn and me would mean changing
the whole texture."
"You are right," said Linden. "And seeing it that way you have begun to
put your change into operation."
The fire shined, the rain beat upon the panes, the wind came with the
impact of sea in storm. Pictures shifted before the inner eye. Lands and
times held the earth. Now they seemed foreign pictures, now there was a
faintly conscious participation. "We are Earth, to-night," said Linden.
"All these are in our memory. Earth is growing conscious. A conscious
Spirit. That is what we mean to-day when we say, 'There is a new world
just beneath the horizon.'"