A soft voice replied: “Don’t be alarmed, sir, I am the Plumage Bill.”
Its shape had grown no clearer; but in sheer amazement I went on
speaking as though it were a being.
“What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you in there?” And I pointed to
Big Ben.
The voice answered again: “They have no time for me, sir. I am resting a
moment before I pass.”
“But,” I said, “you ‘pass’ in there, not out here!”
I could have sworn I heard it laugh, much as a dying child will laugh if
you show it a jumping toy: “Oh! no, sir! It is here we pass into nothing
and the summer night.”
And, as it spoke, around me came the most extraordinary beating and
vibration in the air, a kind of white-gray wonder of invisible wings
wheeling and hovering. The whole of dark space seemed full of millions
of these invisible wings, so that I stood utterly bewildered. Then from
out of that noiseless swirl rose suddenly hundreds of thousands of tiny
voices as of birds too young to fly, calling, crying, calling. And,
flinging up my hands, I pressed them against the drums of my ears till I
thought I should break them in; but still I heard the hundreds of
thousands of shrill little voices crying, and crying. “Hush!” I called
out: “For heaven’s sake, hush!” But on they went, feeble and shrill amid
that invisible swirl of winged mothers trying to reach and feed them;
then, just when I thought I could bear it no longer, the mist on the
water curled over and broke like a wave, something sighed out
“Farewell!” and the thin gray shape was no longer there.
All was still once more. The Bridge stretched empty. Big Ben glowed in
the sky. I drew a long breath and turned to look down at the water.
There, on the parapet, was that thin gray shape again!
“Not gone?” I cried.
A voice answered: “Sir, I have only just come. I am the Bill of the
Worn-out Horses.”
“What!” I cried; “had they no time even for you?”
And, as I spoke, I heard the sound of thousands of hoofs, and saw,
passing me slowly on the dark air, the gaunt shapes of horses. From side
to side, up, down—horses dragging worn feet, halting, passing—their
heads lower than their hoofs.
And I cried out: “For Christ’s sake, pass!”
The voice answered: “We pass, sir. Farewell!”
With a sound of plunging the water rose black through the mist to the
level of the Bridge, fell again, and all was once more still.
“I’m haunted!” I thought; and crossed to the other side. There, again,
before me on the parapet was a gray shape that said: “I am the Bill of
the Slaughtered Beasts.”
And, on the instant, there came at me in the air, as though I were the
centre of a wheel, a million spokes of beasts, great beasts and little,
snorting, writhing, quivering, with a sound of the gurgling of blood.
And in terror I cried: “Pass!”
The voice answered: “We pass, sir. Farewell.”
And the river ran by below, swollen to the height of a hill—all red.