motionless by the
walls. The stranger placed me beside him on a divan and again spoke
to me, and again I spoke, but without the least advance towards
understanding each other.

But now I began to feel the effects of the blow I had received from the
splinters of the falling rock more acutely that I had done at first.

There came over me a sense of sickly faintness, accompanied with acute,
lancinating pains in the head and neck. I sank back on the seat and
strove in vain to stifle a groan. On this the child, who had hitherto
seemed to eye me with distrust or dislike, knelt by my side to support
me; taking one of my hands in both his own, he approached his lips to
my forehead, breathing on it softly. In a few moments my pain ceased; a
drowsy, heavy calm crept over me; I fell asleep.

How long I remained in this state I know not, but when I woke I felt
perfectly restored. My eyes opened upon a group of silent forms, seated
around me in the gravity and quietude of Orientals--all more or less
like the first stranger; the same mantling wings, the same fashion of
garment, the same sphinx-like faces, with the deep dark eyes and red
man's colour; above all, the same type of race--race akin to man's, but
infinitely stronger of form and grandeur of aspect--and inspiring the
same unutterable feeling of dread. Yet each countenance was mild and
tranquil, and even kindly in expression. And, strangely enough, it
seemed to me that in this very calm and benignity consisted the secret
of the dread which the countenances inspired. They seemed as void of the
lines and shadows which care and sorrow, and passion and sin, leave upon
the faces of men, as are the faces of sculptured gods, or as, in the
eyes of Christian mourners, seem the peaceful brows of the dead.

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder; it was the child's. In his eyes there
was a sort of lofty pity and tenderness, such as that with which we may
gaze on some suffering bird or butterfly. I shrank from that touch--I
shrank from that eye. I was vaguely impressed with a belief that, had he
so pleased, that child could have killed me as easily as a man can kill
a bird or a butterfly. The child seemed pained at my repugnance, quitted
me, and placed himself beside one of the windows. The others continued
to converse with each other in a low tone, and by their glances towards
me I could perceive that I was the object of their conversation. One
in especial seemed to be urging some proposa