|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 20
We climbed the staircase where dim light lay so invitingly, and came
presently to a little darker chamber. Green, blunt things had pushed
and burst through the casement. The air smelled faintly-sour of brier,
and was as still as boughs of snow. There the not-unhappy Princess
reclined before a looking-glass, whither I suppose she had run to view
her own alarm when the sharp needle pierced her thumb. All alarm was
stilled now on her face. She, one might think, of all that company of
the sleepy, was the only one that dreamed. Her youthful lips lay a
little asunder; the heavy beauty of her hair was parted on her
forehead; her childish hands sidled together like leverets in her lap.
"Why!" I cried aloud, almost involuntarily, "she breathes!"
And at sound of my voice the hounds leapt back; and, on a traveller's
oath, I verily believe, once, and how swiftly, and how fearfully and
brightly, those childish lids unsealed their light as of lilac that
lay behind, glanced briefly, fleetingly, on one who had ventured so
far, and fell again to rest.
"And when," I cried harshly, "when will that laggard burst through
this agelong silence? Here's dust enough for all to see. And all this
ruin, this inhospitable peace!"
Prince Ennui glanced strangely at me.
"I assure you, O suddenly enkindled," he said in his suave, monotonous
voice, "it is not for _my_ indifference he does not come. I would
willingly sleep; these--my dear sister, all these old fineries and
love-jinglers would as fain wake." He turned away his treacherous eyes
from me. "Maybe the Lorelei hath snared him!..." he said, smiling.
I relished not at all the thought of sleeping in this mansion of
sleep. Yet it seemed politic to refrain from giving offence to fangs
apparently so eager to take it. Accordingly I followed this Ennui to a
loftier chamber yet that he suggested for me.
Once there, however, and his soft footfall passed away, I looked about
me, first to find a means for keeping trespassers from coming in, and
next to find a means for getting myself out.
It was a long and arduous, but not a perilous, descent from the window
by the thick-grown greenery that cumbered the walls. But I determined
to wait awhile before venturing,--wait, too, till I could see plainly
where Rosinante had made her night-quarters. By good fortune I
discovered her beneath the greenish moon that hung amid mist above the
forest, stretching a disconsolate neck at the waterside as if in
search of the Lorelei.
When, as it seemed to me, it must be nearing dawn, though how the
hours flitted so swiftly passed my comprehension, I very cautiously
climbed out of my narrow window and descended slowly to the lawns
beneath. My foot had scarcely touched ground when ringing and menacing
from some dark gallery of the palace above me broke out a distant
baying.
Nothing shall persuade me to tell how fast I ran; how feverishly I
haled poor Rosinante out of sleep, and pushed her down into the deeps
of that coal-black stream; with what agility I clambered into the
saddle.
Yet I could not help commiserating the while the faithful soul who
floated beneath me. The stream was swift but noiseless, the water
rather rare than cold, yet, despite all the philosophy beaming out of
her maidenly eyes across the smooth surface of the tide, Rosinante
must have preferred from the bottom of her heart dry land.
I, too, momentarily, when I discovered that we were speedily
approaching the roaring fall whose reverberations I had heard long
since.
Out of the emerald twilight we floated from beneath the overarching
thickets. Pale beams were striking from the risen sun upon the gliding
surface, and dwelt in splendour where danger sat charioted beneath a
palely gorgeous bow. Yet I doubt if ever mortal man swept on to defeat
at last so rapturously as I.
The gloomier trees had now withdrawn from the banks of the river. A
pale morning sky over-canopied the shimmering forests. Here rose the
solitary tower where Echo tarried for the Hornblower. And straight
before us, across that level floor, beyond a tremulous cloud of foam
and light and colour, lurked the unseen, the unimaginable, the
ever-dreamed-of, Death.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|