back, and to have pusht the Garment from her face,
and did be lying with her eyes open, and a look of gentle wonderment
upon her dear face. And she then to see me, and her eyes did smile at
me, very glad and quiet; for there to be yet an utter weakness upon her.

And lo! I came with a falling beside her, and I gat upon my knees and
upon my hands, and my heart did shake my lips to dry whisperings. And
she to look weak and steadfast unto me, and I to look forever at her;
and I did alway try to say things unto her; but my mouth to refuse me.

And understanding did come into her, as a light; and she to know in that
instant that she to be truly come into the Mighty Pyramid, and I to have
gat her there somewise; and she to wake sudden in her body, and set her
hands forth all a-trembling from the Garment, and in dreadful trouble.
And I to see then that the blood did go from me, constant; and the Maid
to have perceived this thing, so that she was waked the more proper in a
moment from her death-swoon.

And surely, I did bleed very dreadful; for all my wounds did be opened
with my running. And I to have sudden power with my lips, and did say
unto her, very simple, that I loved her. And she to be all in an haze
from me; and I to know that she to have come likewise unto her knees,
and did have my head upon her breast; and there to be an utter shaking
of the air with some great sound, and a mighty spiritual stirring of the
aether of the world.

And there to be then the voice of the Master Monstruwacan very dull in
mine ears; and the low voice of the Master Doctor; but I never to hear
what they did be saying; and did know only that Mine Own Maid did live;
and I not to mean to die, but to fight unto living. And even whilst that
I made this resolving, I was gone into an utter blackness.

XVII

THE LOVE DAYS

Now, when that I gat back unto life, I to know that I went upward in the
Lift, and did be upon that same bed, where I to think I never to need a
bed any more, neither to come upward again from out of the Country of
Silence.

And I to know vague and strange, that there rose up from out of the
mighty depths of the world, the deep thunder of the Underground Organs,
and did sound as that they made a strange and utter distant music beyond
death; and there to go alway a rolling chaunting, as that multitudes did
sing beyond far mountains, and the sound to be somewhiles as a
far-blowing wind, low in the Deep; and again t