uttered a cry of lamentation and wrath.  ’Where are the ill-doers, the spillers of blood, that we may spill their blood and avenge Ibycus, showing the gods that we are their helpers?’ But those robbers and murderers might not be found.  And the body of Ibycus was consumed upon a funeral pyre.

“The festival hours went by in Corinth.  And now began to fill the amphitheater where might find room a host for number like the acorns of Dodona.  The throng was huge, the sound that it made like the shock of ocean.  Around, tier above tier, swept the rows, and for roof there was the blue and sunny air.  Then the voice of the sea hushed, for now entered the many-numbered chorus.  Slow-circling, it sang of mighty Fate:  ’For every word shall have its echo, and every deed shall see its face.  The word shall say, “Is it my echo?” and the deed shall say, “Is it my face?"’—­

“The chorus passes, singing.  The voices die, there falls a silence, sent as it were from inner space.  The open sky is above the amphitheater.  And now there comes, from north to south, sailing that sea above, high, but not so high that their shape is indistinguishable, a long flight of cranes.  Heads move, eyes are raised, but none know why that interest is so keen, so still.  Then from out the throng rises, struck with forgetfulness of gathered Corinth and of its own reasons for being dumb as is the stone, a man’s voice, and the fear that Pan gives ran yet around in that voice.  ’See, brother, see!  The cranes of Ibycus!’

     “‘Ibycus!’ The crowd about those men pressed in upon them. 
     ‘What do you know of Ibycus?’ And great Pan drove them to
     show in their faces what they knew.  So Corinth took—­”

Alexander Jardine shut the book and, leaving the window, dropped it upon the table.  His hand shook, his face was convulsed.  “I’ve read as far as needs be.  Those things strike me like hammers!” With suddenness he turned and was gone.

Strickland was aware that he might not return that day to the school-room, perhaps not to the house.  He went out of the west door and across the grassy space to the gap in the wall, through which he disappeared.  Beyond was the rough descent to wood and stream.

Jamie spoke:  “He’s a queer body!  He says he thinks that he lived a long time ago, and then a shorter time ago, and then now.  He says that some days he sees it all come up in a kind of dark desert.”

Alice put in her word, “Mother says he’s many in one, and that the many and one don’t yet recognize each other.”

“Your mother is a wise woman,” said the tutor.  “Let me see how the work goes.”