to none but to them alone.  Yet only to hear the sound was enough to transport all who listened, and to make them know what joy is and peace.  The little Pilgrim wept for happiness to hear her brother’s voice; but in the midst of it her ear was caught by another sound,—­a faint cry which tingled up from the darkness like a note of a muffled bell,—­and she turned from the joy and the light, and flung out her arms and her little voice towards him who was stumbling upon the dark mountains.  And ‘Come,’ she cried, ‘come, come!’ forgetting all things save that one was there in the darkness, while here was light and peace.

‘It is nearer,’ said her guide, hearing, even in the midst of his triumph song, that faint and distant cry; and he took her hand and drew her back, for she was upon the edge of the precipice, gazing into the black depths, which revealed nothing save the needles of the awful rocks and sheer descents below.  ‘The moment will come,’ he said, ’when we can help; but it is not yet.’

Her heart was in the depths with him who was coming, whom she knew not save that he was coming, toiling upwards towards the light; and it seemed to her that she could not contain herself, nor wait till he should appear, nor draw back from the edge, where she might hold out her hands to him and save him some single step, if no more.  But presently her heart returned to her brother who stood by her side, and who was delivered, and with whom it was meet that all should rejoice, since he had fought and conquered, and reached the land of light.  ‘Oh,’ she said, ’it is long to wait while he is still upon these dark mountains.  Tell me how it came to you to find the way.’

He turned to her with a smile, though his ear too was intent, and his heart fixed upon the traveller in the darkness, and began to tell her his tale to beguile the time of waiting, and to hold within bounds the pity that filled her heart.  He told her that he was one of many who came from the pleasant earth together, out of many countries and tongues; and how they had gone here and there each man to a different city; and how they had crossed each other’s paths coming and going, yet never found rest for their feet; and how there was a little relief in every change, and one sought that which another left; and how they wandered round and round over all the vast and endless plain, until at length in revolt from every other way, they had chosen a spot upon the slope of a hill, and built there a new city, if perhaps something better might be found there; and how it had been built with towers and high walls, and great gates to shut it in, so that no stranger should find entrance; and how every house was a palace, with statues of marble, and pillars so precious with beautiful work, and arches so lofty and so fair that they were better than had they been made of gold,—­yet gold was not wanting, nor diamond stones that shone like stars, and everything more beautiful and stately than heart could conceive.