my hollow hand, and repeated
over and over again to myself, "He coughed as he threw it away--he
coughed as he threw it away." I added new words to these, gave them
additional point, changed the whole sentence, and made it catching and
piquant. He coughed once--Kheu heu!

I exhausted myself in weaving variations on these words, and the
evening was far advanced before my mirth ceased. Then a drowsy quiet
overcame me; a pleasant languor which I did not attempt to resist. The
darkness had intensified, and a slight breeze furrowed the pearl-blue
sea. The ships, the masts of which I could see outlined against the
sky, looked with their black hulls like voiceless monsters that
bristled and lay in wait for me. I had no pain--my hunger had taken the
edge off it. In its stead I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by
everything around me, and glad not to be noticed by any one. I put my
feet up on the seat and leant back. Thus I could best appreciate the
well-being of perfect isolation. There was not a cloud on my mind, not
a feeling of discomfort, and so far as my thought reached, I had not a
whim, not a desire unsatisfied. I lay with open eyes, in a state of
utter absence of mind. I felt myself charmed away. Moreover, not a
sound disturbed me. Soft darkness had hidden the whole world from my
sight, and buried me in ideal rest. Only the lonely, crooning voice of
silence strikes in monotones on my ear, and the dark monsters out there
will draw me to them when night comes, and they will bear me far across
the sea, through strange lands where no man dwells, and they will bear
me to Princess Ylajali's palace, where an undreamt-of grandeur awaits
me, greater than that of any other man. And she herself will be sitting
in a dazzling hall where all is amethyst, on a throne of yellow roses,
and will stretch out her hands to me when I alight; will smile and call
as I approach and kneel: "Welcome, welcome, knight, to me and my land!
I have waited twenty summers for you, and called for you on all bright
nights. And when you sorrowed I have wept here, and when you slept I
have breathed sweet dreams in you!"... And the fair one clasps my hand
and, holding it, leads me through long corridors where great crowds of
people cry, "Hurrah!" through bright gardens where three hundred tender
maidens laugh and play; and through another hall where all is of
emerald; and here the sun shines.

In the corridors and galleries choirs of musicians march by, and r