Yet she followed me uncomplaining along these narrow avenues of silence, and without more ado turned her trivial tail on Death and his dim flocks, and well-nigh scampered me off into the vivid morning.  Soon afterwards, with Hunger in the saddle, we began to climb a road almost precipitous, and stony in the extreme.  Often enough we breathed ourselves as best we could in the still, sultry air, and rested on the sun-dappled slopes.  But at length we came out upon the crest, and surveyed in the first splendour of day a region of extraordinary grandeur.

Beneath a clear sky to the east stood a range of mountains, cold and changeless beneath their snows.  At my feet a great river flowed, broken here and there with isles in the bright flood.  The dark champaign that flanked its shores was of an unusual verdure.  Mystery and peril brooded on those distant ravines, the vapours of their far-descending cataracts.  In such abysmal fastnesses as these the Hyrcan tiger might hide his surly generations.  This was an air for the sun-disdaining eagle, a country of transcendent brightness, its flowers strangely pure and perfect, its waters more limpid, its grazing herds, its birds, its cedar trees, the masters of their kind.

Yet not on these nearer glories my eyes found rest.  But, with a kind of heartache, I gazed, as it were towards home, upon the distant waters of the sea.  Here, on the crest of this green hill, was silence.  There, too, was profounder silence on the sea’s untrampled floor.  Whence comes that angel out of nought whispering into the ear strange syllables?  I know not; but so seemed I to stand—­a shattered instrument in the world, past all true music, o’er which none the less the invisible lute-master stooped.  Could I but catch, could I but in words express the music his bent fingers intended, the mystery, the peace—­well; then I should indeed journey solitary on the face of the earth, a changeling in its cities.

I half feared to descend into a country so diverse from any I had yet seen.  Hitherto at least I had encountered little else than friendliness.  But here—­doves in eyries!  I stood, twisting my fingers in Rosinante’s mane, debating and debating.  And she turned her face to me, and looked with age into my eyes:  and I know not how woke courage in me again.

“On then?” I said, on the height.  And the gentle beast leaned forward and coughed into the valley what might indeed be “Yea!”

So we began to descend.  Down we went, alone, yet not unhappy, until in a while I discovered, about a hundred yards in advance of me, another traveller on the road, ambling easily along at an equal pace with mine.  I know not how far I followed in his track debating whether to overtake and to accost him, or to follow on till a more favourable chance offered.

But Chance—­avenger of all shilly-shally—­settled the matter offhand.  For my traveller, after casting one comprehensive glance towards the skies, suddenly whisked off at a canter that quickly carried him out of sight.