passed; each man strikes out a path for himself. He goes at his own
peril: my voice he hears no more. I may follow after him, but cannot go
before him."

Then Knowledge vanished.

And the hunter turned. He went to his cage, and with his hands broke
down the bars, and the jagged iron tore his flesh. It is sometimes
easier to build than to break.

One by one he took his plumed birds and let them fly. But when he came
to his dark-plumed bird he held it, and looked into its beautiful eyes,
and the bird uttered its low, deep cry--"Immortality!"

And he said quickly: "I cannot part with it. It is not heavy; it eats
no food. I will hide it in my breast; I will take it with me." And he
buried it there and covered it over with his cloak.

But the thing he had hidden grew heavier, heavier, heavier--till it lay
on his breast like lead. He could not move with it. He could not leave
those valleys with it. Then again he took it out and looked at it.

"Oh, my beautiful! my heart's own!" he cried, "may I not keep you?"

He opened his hands sadly.

"Go!" he said. "It may happen that in Truth's song one note is like
yours; but I shall never hear it."

Sadly he opened his hand, and the bird flew from him forever.

Then from the shuttle of Imagination he took the thread of his wishes,
and threw it on the ground; and the empty shuttle he put into his
breast, for the thread was made in those valleys, but the shuttle came
from an unknown country. He turned to go, but now the people came about
him, howling.

"Fool, hound, demented lunatic!" they cried. "How dared you break your
cage and let the birds fly?"

The hunter spoke; but they would not hear him.

"Truth! who is she? Can you eat her? can you drink her? Who has ever
seen her? Your birds were real: all could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vile
reptile! atheist!" they cried, "you pollute the air."

"Come, let us take up stones and stone him," cried some.

"What affair is it of ours?" said others. "Let the idiot go," and went
away. But the rest gathered up stones and mud and threw at him. At last,
when he was bruised and cut, the hunter crept away into the woods. And
it was evening about him.

He wandered on and on, and the shade grew deeper. He was on the borders
now of the land where it is always night. Then he stepped into it, and
there was no light there. With his hands he groped; but each branch
as he touched it broke off, and the earth was covered with cinders. At
every