l affecting me on the being
whom I had first met, and this last by his gesture seemed about to
assent to it, when the child suddenly quitted his post by the window,
placed himself between me and the other forms, as if in protection, and
spoke quickly and eagerly. By some intuition or instinct I felt that
the child I had before so dreaded was pleading in my behalf. Ere he had
ceased another stranger entered the room. He appeared older than the
rest, though not old; his countenance less smoothly serene than theirs,
though equally regular in its features, seemed to me to have more the
touch of a humanity akin to my own. He listened quietly to the words
addressed to him, first by my guide, next by two others of the group,
and lastly by the child; then turned towards myself, and addressed
me, not by words, but by signs and gestures. These I fancied that I
perfectly understood, and I was not mistaken. I comprehended that he
inquired whence I came. I extended my arm, and pointed towards the road
which had led me from the chasm in the rock; then an idea seized me.
I drew forth my pocket-book, and sketched on one of its blank leaves a
rough design of the ledge of the rock, the rope, myself clinging to it;
then of the cavernous rock below, the head of the reptile, the lifeless
form of my friend. I gave this primitive kind of hieroglyph to my
interrogator, who, after inspecting it gravely, handed it to his next
neighbour, and it thus passed round the group. The being I had at first
encountered then said a few words, and the child, who approached and
looked at my drawing, nodded as if he comprehended its purport, and,
returning to the window, expanded the wings attached to his form, shook
them once or twice, and then launched himself into space without. I
started up in amaze and hastened to the window. The child was already in
the air, buoyed on his wings, which he did not flap to and fro as a
bird does, but which were elevated over his head, and seemed to bear him
steadily aloft without effort of his own. His flight seemed as swift
as an eagle's; and I observed that it was towards the rock whence I
had descended, of which the outline loomed visible in the brilliant
atmosphere. In a very few minutes he returned, skimming through the
opening from which he had gone, and dropping on the floor the rope and
grappling-hooks I had left at the descent from the chasm. Some words in
a low tone passed between the being present; one of the group