The visitors had not awakened.
Now the air was growing clearer; the first livid pallor of the dawn had
changed to a wholesome twilight, and light was rolling like clear smoke
over the land. The air looked cold, and it began to look sharp instead
of muddy; now the trees and bushes stood apart; they seemed lonely and
unguarded in that chill dawning; they seemed like living things which
were cold and a little frightened in an immensity to which they were
foreign and from which they had much to dread.
Of all unnatural things, if that word can be used in any context, there
is none more unnatural than silence, there is none so terrifying; for
silence means more than itself, it means also immobility; it is the
symbol and signature of death, and from it no one knows what may come at
an instant; for silence is not quietness, it is the enemy of quietness;
against it your watch must climb the tower and stare in vain; against it
your picket must be set, and he will thrust a lance to the sound of his
own pulses; he will challenge the beating of his own heart, and hear his
own harness threatening him at a distance.
To walk in a forest when there is no wind to stir the branches and set
the leaves tapping upon the boughs, this is terrifying; a lonely sea
stretching beyond sight and upon which there is no ripple holds the same
despair, and a grassy plain from whence there is no movement visible has
too its desolating horror.
But these things did not haunt the girl. She did not heed the silence
for she did not listen to it; she did not heed the immensity for she did
not see it. In space and silence she had been cradled; they were her
foster-parents, and if ever she looked or listened it was to see and
hear something quite other than these. Now she did listen and look. She
listened to the breathing of the sleepers, and soon, for she was a
female, she looked to see what they were like.
She leaned softly over one. He was a noble old man with a sweeping,
white beard and a great brow; the expression of his quiet features was
that of a wise infant; her heart went out to him and she smiled at him
in his sleep.
She trod to the next and bent again. He was younger, but not young; he
looked about forty years of age; his features were regular and very
determined; his face looked strong, comely as though it had been
chiselled from a gracious stone; there was a short coal-black beard on
his chin.
She turned to the third sleeper, and halted blushing. She remembered his
face, caught on the previous night in one lightning peep while she slid
away from their approach. It was from him she had fled in the night, and
for him that her hair was now draping her shoulders in unaccustomed
beauty.
She did not dare go near him; she was afraid that if she bent over him
he would flash open his eyes and look at her, and, as yet, she could not
support such a look. She knew that if she were stretched in sleep and he
approached to lean across her, she would awaken at the touch of his
eyes, and she would be ashamed and frightened.
She did not look at him.
She went again to her place and set to building a fire in the brazier,
and, while she sat, a voice began to sing in the dawn; not loud, but
very gently, very sweetly. It was so early for a bird to sing, and she
did not recognise that tune although the sound of it was thrilling
through all her body. Softly, more softly, O Prophetic Voice! I do not
know your speech; I do not know what happiness you are promising; is it
of the leaves you tell and of a nest that rocks high on a leafy spray;
there your mate swings cooing to herself. She swings and coos; she is
folded in peace, and the small, white clouds go sailing by and they do
not fall.
So through unimagined ways went that song, lifting its theme in terms
that she did not comprehend; but it was not a bird that sang to her, it
was her own heart making its obscure music and lilting its secret, wild
lyrics in the dawn.