at pushed
more boldly forth from the earth, their waxen petals claiming the
attention. It advanced then a long step into the proud, challenging
beauty of the carnations and roses; and at last, after many nights,
Vanamee felt that it paused, as if trembling at its hardihood, full
in the superb glory of the royal lilies themselves, that grew on the
extreme border of the Seed ranch nearest to him. After this, there was
a certain long wait. Then, upon a dark midnight, it advanced again.
Vanamee could scarcely repress a cry. Now, the illusion emerged from the
flowers. It stood, not distant, but unseen, almost at the base of the
hill upon whose crest he waited, in a depression of the ground where the
shadows lay thickest. It was nearly within earshot.

The nights passed. The spring grew warmer. In the daytime intermittent
rains freshened all the earth. The flowers of the Seed ranch grew
rapidly. Bud after bud burst forth, while those already opened expanded
to full maturity. The colour of the Seed ranch deepened.

One night, after hours of waiting, Vanamee felt upon his cheek the touch
of a prolonged puff of warm wind, breathing across the little valley
from out the east. It reached the Mission garden and stirred the
branches of the pear trees. It seemed veritably to be compounded of
the very essence of the flowers. Never had the aroma been so sweet, so
pervasive. It passed and faded, leaving in its wake an absolute silence.
Then, at length, the silence of the night, that silence to which Vanamee
had so long appealed, was broken by a tiny sound. Alert, half-risen from
the ground, he listened; for now, at length, he heard something. The
sound repeated itself. It came from near at hand, from the thick shadow
at the foot of the hill. What it was, he could not tell, but it did not
belong to a single one of the infinite similar noises of the place with
which he was so familiar. It was neither the rustle of a leaf, the snap
of a parted twig, the drone of an insect, the dropping of a magnolia
blossom. It was a vibration merely, faint, elusive, impossible of
definition; a minute notch in the fine, keen edge of stillness.

Again the nights passed. The summer stars became brighter. The warmth
increased. The flowers of the Seed ranch grew still more. The five
hundred acres of the ranch were carpeted with them.

At length, upon a certain midnight, a new light began to spread in
the sky. The thin scimitar of the moon rose, veiled and d