listening and singing, and to have for him, as he
for them, a loving friendship. And, looking up to the sky,
he saw, drawn out stringwise, a flight of cranes, addressed
to Egypt. And between his heart and them ran, like a
rippling path that the sun sends across the sea, a stream of
good-will and understanding. They seemed a part of himself,
winged in the blue heaven, and aware of the part of him that
trod earth, that was entering the grave and shadowy wood
that neighbored Corinth.

"The cranes vanished from overhead, the sky arched without
stain. Ibycus, the sacred poet, with his staff and his lyre,
went on into the wood. Now the light faded and there was
green gloom, like the depths of Father Sea.

"Now robbers lay masked in the wood--"

Jamie and Alice sat very still, listening. Strickland kept his eyes
on the reading youth.

"Now robbers lay masked in the wood--violent men and
treacherous, watching for the unwary, to take from them
goods and, if they resisted, life. In a dark place they lay
in wait, and from thence they sprang upon Ibycus. 'What hast
thou? Part it from thyself and leave it with us!'

"Ibycus, who could sing of the wars of the Greeks and the
Trojans no less well than of the joys of young love, made
stand, held close to him his lyre, but raised on high his
staff of oak. Then from behind one struck him with a keen
knife, and he sank, and lay in his blood. The place was the
edge of a glade, where the trees thinned away and the sky
might be seen overhead. And now, across the blue heaven,
came a second line of the south-ward-going cranes. They flew
low, they flapped their wings, and the wood heard their
crying. Then Ibycus the poet raised his arms to his brothers
the birds. 'Ye cranes, flying between earth and heaven,
avenge shed blood, as is right!'

"Hoarse screamed the cranes flying overhead. Ibycus the poet
closed his eyes, pressed his lips to Mother Earth, and died.
The cranes screamed again, circling the wood, then in a long
line sailed southward through the blue air until they might
neither be heard nor seen. The robbers stared after them.
They laughed, but without mirth. Then, stooping to the body
of Ibycus, they would have rifled it when, hearing a sudden
sound of men's voices entering the wood, they t