perpetual eddying of the water, had
been worn into a grotesque resemblance to a group of giants, with
heads submerged, indolently reclining about the basin.

In this pool, Yillah would bathe. And once, emerging, she heard the
echoes of a voice, and called aloud. But the only reply, was the
rustling of branches, as some one, invisible, fled down the valley
beyond. Soon after, a stone rolled inward, and Aleema the priest
stood before her; saying that the voice she had heard was his. But it
was not.

At last the weary days grew, longer and longer, and the maiden pined
for companionship. When the breeze blew not, but slept in the caves
of the mountains, and all the leaves of the trees stood motionless as
tears in the eye, Yillah would sadden, and call upon the spirits in
her soul to awaken. She sang low airs, she thought she had heard in
Oroolia; but started affrighted, as from dingles and dells, came back
to her strains more wild than hers. And ever, when sad, Aleema would
seek to cheer her soil, by calling to mind the bright scenes of
Oroolia the Blest, to which place, he averred, she was shortly to
return, never more to depart.

Now, at the head of the vale of Ardair, rose a tall, dark peak,
presenting at the top the grim profile of a human face; whose
shadow, every afternoon, crept down the verdant side of the mountain:
a silent phantom, stealing all over the bosom of the glen.

At times, when the phantom drew near, Aleema would take Yillah forth,
and waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her
arms in a caress; saying, "Oh, Apo! dost accept thy bride?" And at
last, when it crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the
whole valley in gloom; Aleema would say, "Arise Yillah; Apo hath
stretched himself to sleep in Ardair. Go, slumber where thou wilt;
for thou wilt slumber in his arms."

And so, every night, slept the maiden in the arms of grim Apo.

One day when Yillah had come to love the wild shadow, as something
that every day moved before her eyes, where all was so deathfully
still; she went forth alone to watch it, as softly it slid down from
the peak. Of a sudden, when its face was just edging a chasm, that
made it to look as if parting its lips, she heard a loud voice, and
thought it was Apo calling "Yillah! Yillah!" But now it seemed like
the voice she had heard while bathing in the pool. Glancing upward,
she beheld a beautiful open-armed youth, gazing down upon her from an
inac