of a cricket broke the silence. The bees were
asleep. In the grasses, in the trees, deep in the calix of punka flower
and magnolia bloom, the gnats, the caterpillars, the beetles, all the
microscopic, multitudinous life of the daytime drowsed and dozed. Not
even the minute scuffling of a lizard over the warm, worn pavement of
the colonnade disturbed the infinite repose, the profound stillness.
Only within the garden, the intermittent trickling of the fountain made
itself heard, flowing steadily, marking off the lapse of seconds,
the progress of hours, the cycle of years, the inevitable march of
centuries. At one time, the doorway before which Vanamee now stood had
been hermetically closed. But he, himself, had long since changed that.
He stood before it for a moment, steeping himself in the mystery and
romance of the place, then raising he latch, pushed open the gate,
entered, and closed it softly behind him. He was in the cloister garden.

The stars were out, strewn thick and close in the deep blue of the sky,
the milky way glowing like a silver veil. Ursa Major wheeled gigantic
in the north. The great nebula in Orion was a whorl of shimmering star
dust. Venus flamed a lambent disk of pale saffron, low over the horizon.
From edge to edge of the world marched the constellations, like the
progress of emperors, and from the innumerable glory of their courses a
mysterious sheen of diaphanous light disengaged itself, expanding over
all the earth, serene, infinite, majestic.

The little garden revealed itself but dimly beneath the brooding light,
only half emerging from the shadow. The polished surfaces of the leaves
of the pear trees winked faintly back the reflected light as the trees
just stirred in the uncertain breeze. A blurred shield of silver marked
the ripples of the fountain. Under the flood of dull blue lustre, the
gravelled walks lay vague amid the grasses, like webs of white satin
on the bed of a lake. Against the eastern wall the headstones of the
graves, an indistinct procession of grey cowls ranged themselves.

Vanamee crossed the garden, pausing to kiss the turf upon Angele's
grave. Then he approached the line of pear trees, and laid himself down
in their shadow, his chin propped upon his hands, his eyes wandering
over the expanse of the little valley that stretched away from the foot
of the hill upon which the Mission was built.

Once again he summoned the Vision. Once again he conjured up the
Illusion.