ure in
the storehouse beneath, spending it prodigally for sap to be poured into
these waiting goblets of emerald and pearl. All the hoarded strength of
leaf and tendril was caught up by the current, and swept blindly onward
to its fruitful destiny.

And so the first faint hints of purple came into the tapestry, to spread
and deepen and divide and spread again until, in certain lights, the
vineyard lay transfigured in an amethystine glow.

[Sidenote: The Gathering of the Fruit]

Shaded by the leaves that had begun to wither, held by tendrils that
were strained until they could hold no more, the purple chalices swung
lazily in the golden light, slowly filling with the garnered sweetness
that every moment brought. Night and day the alchemy went on--dust and
sun and dreaming, dust and moon and dreaming, while the Weaver waited,
dreaming too, until the web should be complete.

When the signal was given for the tapestry to be taken from the loom,
the Weaver crept away, for he could do no more. Figures thronged upon
the hillside, gaily coloured garments appeared here and there in the
web, and a medley of soft foreign voices rose where for long there had
been no sound.

From side to side of the web the workers moved, always bearing armfuls
of purple, to the frame of pines and beyond it. And so the tapestry
faded, day by day, and the vines died, and great bare spaces were left
upon the background where the neutral earth showed through.

Steadily among them moved one stately figure--a tall young man with big
brown eyes and a boyish mouth. From early morning until dusk his voice
could be heard, issuing directions, hurrying the laggards, and bidding
others to go back and work more slowly.

[Sidenote: After the Day's Work]

Creaking through the valley, on the tawny road that lay below the
tapestry, went, each night, waggons heavily laden with baskets packed
into crates. Far beyond the frame of pines was a small group of houses,
whither the workers went with their armfuls of purple, returning
presently to despoil the hillside further.

At dusk, when the day's work was over, the smoke of camp-fires rose
against the afterglow, and brooded over the vineyard in a faint haze
like its lost bloom. The scent of grapes mingled with the pungent odour
of burning pine, and broken chalices upon the ground were trod into
purple stains, as of blood. Tales of love and war went from camp-fire to
camp-fire, and fabulous stories were told of