dazzling clear high above me, and, next, that the delightful
noise of running water babbled close against my ear. I lay upon a
strip of warm sward by the river's brink. Near by me grew some
rank-smelling waterside plant, and overhead the air seemed peopled
with larks.

I crawled, confused and aching, to the water, and dipped my head and
hands into the cold rills. This soon refreshed me, for the sun had, it
would seem, long been dwelling on that passive corse of mine by the
waterside and had parched it to the skin.

But it was some little while yet before my mind returned fully to
what had passed, and so to my loss.

I sat looking at the grey, noisy water, almost incredulous that
Rosinante could be gone. It might be that the same hand as must have
drawn myself from drowning had snatched her bridle also out of Fate's
grasp. Perhaps even now she was seeking her master by the greener
pasture of the wide plains around me. Perhaps the far-off sea was her
green sepulchre. But many waters cannot quench love. I faced,
friendless and discomfited, a region as strange to me as the farther
side of the moon.

Without more ado I rose, shook myself, and sadly began to go forward.
But I had taken only a few steps along the banks of the stream--for
here was fresh water, at least--when a sound like distant thunder
rolled over these flat, green lands towards me, increasing steadily in
volume.

I stood, lost in wonder, and presently, at the distance, perhaps, of a
little less than a mile, descried an innumerable herd of horses
streaming across these level pastures, and at the extremity, it
seemed, of a wide ellipse, that had brought them near, and now was
galloping them away.

My heart beat a little faster at this extraordinary spectacle. And
while I stood in uncertainty gazing after the retreating concourse, I
perceived a figure running towards me, lifting his hands and crying
out in a voice sonorous and inhuman. He was of a stature much above my
own, yet so gross in shape and immense of head he seemed at first
almost dwarfish. He came to a stand twenty paces or so from me, on the
ridge of a gentle inclination, and gazed down on me with wild, bright
eyes. Even at this distance I could perceive the almost colourless
lustre of his eyes beneath his thick locks of yellow hair. When he had
taken his fill of me, he lifted his head again and cried out to me a
few words of what certainly might be English, but was neither
intelligible nor