noise!” And a third, “Let it fly, we cannot hear ourselves speaking for its screaming!” Then the traveler began to feel ashamed of his bird.  “All that I say,” he thought, “appears to them foolish, even the Princess’s gift is, in their eyes, a common chirping chaffinch.  What if indeed I have been dreaming; what if this, after all, should be the real world, and the other a mere fantasy?”

The bird sang, “Away! away! or you will never see the Princess more!  The real world lies beyond the gates of the sunset!”

But when the traveler asked the youths what the bird sang, they answered that they had only heard “Tweet-tweet,” and “Chirp-chirp.”  Then he was really angry, but not with them, as you would perhaps have thought.  No, he was angry with the bird, and ashamed of it and of himself.  And he threw it from him into the air, and clapped his hands to drive it away; and all the youths and girls that stood around him clapped theirs too.  “Sh-shsh,” they cried, “be off, you are a good-for-nothing hedge-finch, and may be thankful your neck has not been wrung to punish you for making such a noise!”

So the bird flew away, away beyond the sunset, and I think it went back to the Princess and told her all that had happened.  And the traveler went, and danced and sang and feasted to his heart’s content with the worshippers of Queen Beauty, not knowing that he really had fallen among the sirens after all!

III.

Meanwhile the two other travelers had gone on their way, for neither of them cared about pleasure; one was a grave-looking man who walked with his eyes on the ground, looking curiously at every rock and shrub he passed by the wayside, and often pausing to examine more closely a strange herb, or to pick to pieces a flower; the other had a calm, sweet face, and he walked erect, his eyes lifted towards the great mountains that lay far away before them.

By-and-by there came along the road towards the two travelers a company of men carrying banners, on which were inscribed as mottoes—­ “Knowledge is Freedom!” " Science knows no law but the law of Progress!” “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!” “Utility is Virtue,” and a great many other fine phrases.  Most of the persons who marched first in this procession wore spectacles, and some were clad in academical costumes.  The greater number had gone past, when the grave-looking traveler—­he who had interested himself so much in the stones and foliage by the wayside—­courteously stopped one of the company and asked him what the procession meant.  “We are worshippers of Science,” answered the man whom he addressed; “today we hold solemn rites in honor of our deity.  Many orations will be made by her high priests, and a great number of victims slain,—­lambs, and horses, and doves, and hinds, and all manner of animals.  They will be put to death with unspeakable torments, racked, and maimed, and burned, and hewn asunder, all for the glory and gain of Science.  And we shall shout with enthusiasm as the blood flows over her altars, and the smoke ascends in her praise.”