."

And standing beside me, Heliobas laid his hands on my head, then
pressed them on my ears, and finally touched my hands, that rested
passively on the keyboard.

He then raised his eyes, and uttered the name I had often thought of
but never mentioned--the name he had called upon in my dream.

"Azul!" he said, in a low, penetrating voice, "open the gateways of the
Air that we may hear the sound of Song!"

A soft rushing noise of wind answered his adjuration. This was followed
by a burst of music, transcendently lovely, but unlike any music I had
ever heard. There were sounds of delicate and entrancing tenderness
such as no instrument made by human hands could produce; there was
singing of clear and tender tone, and of infinite purity such as no
human voices could be capable of. I listened, perplexed, alarmed, yet
entranced. Suddenly I distinguished a melody running through the
wonderful air-symphonies--a melody like a flower, fresh and perfect.
Instinctively I touched the organ and began to play it; I found I could
produce it note for note. I forgot all fear in my delight, and I played
on and on in a sort of deepening rapture. Gradually I became aware that
the strange sounds about me were dying slowly away; fainter and fainter
they grew--softer--farther--and finally ceased. But the melody--that
one distinct passage of notes I had followed out--remained with me, and
I played it again and again with feverish eagerness lest it should
escape me. I had forgotten the presence of Heliobas. But a touch on my
shoulder roused me. I looked up and met his eyes fixed upon, me with a
steady and earnest regard. A shiver ran through, me, and I felt
bewildered.

"Have I lost it?" I asked.

"Lost what?" he demanded.

"The tune I heard--the harmonies."

"No," he replied; "at least I think not. But if you have, no matter.
You will hear others. Why do you look so distressed?"

"It is lovely," I said wistfully, "all that music; but it is not MINE;"
and tears of regret filled my eyes. "Oh, if it were only mine--my very
own composition!"

Heliobas smiled kindly.

"It is as much yours as any thing belongs to anyone. Yours? why, what
can you really call your own? Every talent you have, every breath you
draw, every drop of blood flowing in your veins, is lent to you only;
you must pay it all back. And as far as the arts go, it is a bad sign
of poet, painter, or musician, who is arrogant enough to call his work
his own. It never wa