My companion did not stir.  Only the flames waved silently along the logs.  The beam of sunlight drew across the floor.  The crisp air of the pasture flowed through the window.  What wonder, then, that, sitting on my stool, I fell asleep!

VIII

    If I see all, ye’re nine to ane!

    —­OLD BALLAD.

I was awoke by a sustained sound as of an orator speaking in an unknown tongue, and found myself in a sunny-shadowy loft, whither I suppose I must have been carried in my sleep.  In a delicious languor between sleeping and waking I listened with imperturbable curiosity awhile to that voice of the unknown.  Indeed, I was dozing again when a different sound, enormous, protracted, abruptly aroused me.  I got up, hot and trembling, not yet quite my own master, to discover its cause.

Through a narrow slit between the timbers I could view the country beneath me, far and wide.  I saw near at hand the cumbrous gate of the stockade ajar, and at a little distance on the farther side Mr. Gulliver and his half-human servant standing.  In front of them was an empty space—­a narrow semicircle of which Gulliver was the centre.  And beyond—­wild-eyed, dishevelled, stretching their necks as if to see, inclining their heads as if to hearken, ranging in multitude almost to the sky’s verge—­stood assembled, it seemed to me, all the horses of the universe.

Even in my first sensation of fear admiration irresistibly stirred.  The superb freedom of their unbridled heads, the sun-nurtured arrogance of their eyes, the tumultuous, sea-like tossing of crest and tail, their keenness and ardour and might, and also in simple truth their numbers—­how could one marvel if this solitary fanatic dreamed they heard him and understood?

Unarmed, bareheaded, he faced the brutal discontent of his people.  Words I could not distinguish; but there was little chance of misapprehending the haughty anguish with which he threatened, pleaded, cajoled.  Clear and unfaltering his voice rose and fell.  He dealt out fearlessly, foolishly, to that long-snouted, little-brained, wild-eyed multitude, reason beyond their instinct, persuasion beyond their savagery, love beyond their heed.

But even while I listened, one thing I knew those sleek malcontents heard too—­the Spirit of man in that small voice of his—­perplexed, perhaps, and perverted, and out of tether; but none the less unconquerable and sublime.

What less, thought I, than power unearthly could long maintain that stern, impassable barrier of green vacancy between their hoofs and him?  And I suppose for the very reason that these were beasts of a long-sharpened sagacity, wild-hearted, rebellious, yet not the slaves of impulse, he yet kept himself their king who was, in fact, their captive.

“Houyhnhnms?” I heard him cry; “pah—­Yahoos!” His voice fell; he stood confronting in silence that vast circumference of restless beauty.  And again broke out inhuman, inarticulate, immeasurable revolt.  Far across over the tossing host, rearing, leaping, craning dishevelled heads, went pealing and eddying that hostile, brutal voice.