ourage before
something which she could not understand, Keyork's eyes grew brighter
and brighter till they glowed like drops of molten metal. A sound as of
many voices wailing in agony rose and trembled and quavered in the air.
With a wild cry, Unorna pressed her hands to her ears and fled towards
the entrance.

"You are very nervous to-night," observed Keyork, as he opened the door.

Then he went silently down the stairs by her side and helped her into
the carriage, which had been waiting since his return.

CHAPTER XI

A month had passed since the day on which Unorna had first seen the
Wanderer, and since the evening when she had sat so long in conversation
with Keyork Arabian. The snow lay heavily on all the rolling moorland
about Prague, covering everything up to the very gates of the black
city; and within, all things were as hard and dark and frozen as ever.
The sun was still the sun, no doubt, high above the mist and the gloom
which he had no power to pierce, but no man could say that he had seen
him in that month. At long intervals indeed, a faint rose-coloured glow
touched the high walls of the Hradschin and transfigured for an instant
the short spires of the unfinished cathedral, hundreds of feet above
the icebound river and the sepulchral capital; sometimes, in the dim
afternoons, a little gold filtered through the heavy air and tinged the
snow-steeples of the Teyn Kirche, and yellowed the stately tower of
the town hall; but that was all, so far as the moving throngs of silent
beings that filled the streets could see. The very air men breathed
seemed to be stiffening with damp cold. For that is not the glorious
winter of our own dear north, where the whole earth is a jewel of
gleaming crystals hung between two heavens, between the heaven of the
day, and the heaven of the night, beautiful alike in sunshine and in
starlight, under the rays of the moon, at evening and again at dawn;
where the pines and hemlocks are as forests of plumes powdered thick
with dust of silver; where the black ice rings like a deep-toned bell
beneath the heel of the sweeping skate--the ice that you may follow a
hundred miles if you have breath and strength; where the harshest voice
rings musically among the icicles and the snow-laden boughs; where the
quick jingle of sleigh bells far off on the smooth, deep track brings
to the listener the vision of our own merry Father Christmas, with snowy
beard, and apple cheeks, and peaked f