A Dreamer's Tales

by Lord Dunsany

  IDLE DAYS ON THE YANN

  So I came down through the wood on the bank of Yann and found, as had beenprophesied, the ship _Bird of the River_ about to loose her cable.

  The captain sat cross-legged upon the white deck with his scimitar lyingbeside him in its jeweled scabbard, and the sailors toiled to spread thenimble sails to bring the ship into the central stream of Yann, and allthe while sang ancient soothing songs. And the wind of the eveningdescending cool from the snowfields of some mountainous abode of distantgods came suddenly, like glad tidings to an anxious city, into thewing-like sails.

  And so we came into the central stream, whereat the sailors lowered thegreater sails. But I had gone to bow before the captain, and to inquireconcerning the miracles, and appearances among men, of the most holy godsof whatever land he had come from. And the captain answered that he camefrom fair Belzoond, and worshipped gods that were the least and humblest,who seldom sent the famine or the thunder, and were easily appeased withlittle battles. And I told how I came from Ireland, which is of Europe,whereat the captain and all the sailors laughed, for they said, "There areno such places in all the land of dreams." When they had ceased to mockme, I explained that my fancy mostly dwelt in the desert of Cuppar-Nombo,about a beautiful blue city called Golthoth the Damned, which wassentinelled all round by wolves and their shadows, and had been utterlydesolate for years and years, because of a curse which the gods once spokein anger and could never since recall. And sometimes my dreams took me asfar as Pungar Vees, the red walled city where the fountains are, whichtrades with the Isles and Thul. When I said this they complimented me uponthe abode of my fancy, saying that, though they had never seen thesecities, such places might well be imagined. For the rest of that evening Ibargained with the captain over the sum that I should pay him for any fareif God and the tide of Yann should bring us safely as far as the cliffs bythe sea, which are named Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann.

  And now the sun had set, and all the colours of the world and heaven hadheld a festival with him, and slipped one by one away before the imminentapproach of night. The parrots had all flown home to the jungle on eitherbank, the monkeys in rows in safety on high branches of the trees weresilent and asleep, the fireflies in the deeps of the forest were going upand down, and the great stars came gleaming out to look on the face ofYann. Then the sailors lighted lanterns and hung them round the ship, andthe light flashed out on a sudden and dazzled Yann, and the ducks that fedalong his marshy banks all suddenly arose, and made wide circles in theupper air, and saw the distant reaches of the Yann and the white mist thatsoftly cloaked the jungle, before they returned again to their marshes.

  And then the sailors knelt on the decks and prayed, not all together, butfive or six at a time. Side by side there kneeled down together five orsix, for there only prayed at the same time men of different faiths, sothat no god should hear two men praying to him at once. As soon as any onehad finished his prayer, another of the same faith would take his place.Thus knelt the row of five or six with bended heads under the flutteringsail, while the central stream of the River Yann took them on towards thesea, and their prayers rose up from among the lanterns and went towardsthe stars. And behind them in the after end of the ship the helmsmanprayed aloud the helmsman's prayer, which is prayed by all who follow histrade upon the River Yann, of whatever faith they be. And the captainprayed to his little lesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.

  And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to pray to a jealous Godthere where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen love were beinghumbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth, whom themen of the jungle have long since deserted, who is now unworshipped andalone; and to him I prayed.

  And upon us praying the night came suddenly down, as it comes upon all menwho pray at evening and upon all men who do not; yet our prayers comfortedour own souls when we thought of the Great Night to come.

  And so Yann bore us magnificently onwards, for he was elate with moltensnow that the Poltiades had brought him from the Hills of Hap, and theMarn and Migris were swollen with floods; and he bore us in his full mightpast Kyph and Pir, and we saw the lights of Goolunza.

  Soon we all slept except the helmsman, who kept the ship in the mid-streamof Yann.

  When the sun rose the helmsman ceased to sing, for by song he cheeredhimself in the lonely night. When the song ceased we suddenly all awoke,and another took the helm, and the helmsman slept.

  We knew that soon we should come to Mandaroon. We made a meal, andMandaroon appeared. Then the captain commanded, and the sailors loosedagain the greater sails, and the ship turned and left the stream of Yannand came into a harbour beneath the ruddy walls of Mandaroon. Then whilethe sailors went and gathered fruits I came alone to the gate ofMandaroon. A few huts were outside it, in which lived the guard. Asentinel with a long white beard was standing in the gate, armed with arusty pike. He wore large spectacles, which were covered with dust.Through the gate I saw the city. A deathly stillness was over all of it.The ways seemed untrodden, and moss was thick on doorsteps; in themarket-place huddled figures lay asleep. A scent of incense came waftedthrough the gateway, of incense and burned poppies, and there was a hum ofthe echoes of distant bells. I said to the sentinel in the tongue of theregion of Yann, "Why are they all asleep in this still city?"

  He answered: "None may ask questions in this gate for fear they will wakethe people of the city. For when the people of this city wake the godswill die. And when the gods die men may dream no more." And I began to askhim what gods that city worshipped, but he lifted his pike because nonemight ask questions there. So I left him and went back to the _Bird of theRiver_.

  Certainly Mandaroon was beautiful with her white pinnacles peering overher ruddy walls and the green of her copper roofs.

  When I came back again to the _Bird of the River_, I found the sailorswere returned to the ship. Soon we weighed anchor, and sailed out again,and so came once more to the middle of the river. And now the sun wasmoving toward his heights, and there had reached us on the River Yann thesong of those countless myriads of choirs that attend him in his progressround the world. For the little creatures that have many legs had spreadtheir gauze wings easily on the air, as a man rests his elbows on abalcony and gave jubilant, ceremonial praises to the sun, or else theymoved together on the air in wavering dances intricate and swift, orturned aside to avoid the onrush of some drop of water that a breeze hadshaken from a jungle orchid, chilling the air and driving it before it, asit fell whirring in its rush to the earth; but all the while they sangtriumphantly. "For the day is for us," they said, "whether our great andsacred father the Sun shall bring up more life like us from the marshes,or whether all the world shall end tonight." And there sang all thosewhose notes are known to human ears, as well as those whose far morenumerous notes have been never heard by man.

  To these a rainy day had been as an era of war that should desolatecontinents during all the lifetime of a man.

  And there came out also from the dark and steaming jungle to behold andrejoice in the Sun the huge and lazy butterflies. And they danced, butdanced idly, on the ways of the air, as some haughty queen of distantconquered lands might in her poverty and exile dance, in some encampmentof the gipsies, for the mere bread to live by, but beyond that would neverabate her pride to dance for a fragment more.

  And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things, of purple orchidsand of lost pink cities and the monstrous colours of the jungle's decay.And they, too, were among those whose voices are not discernible by humanears. And as they floated above the river, going from forest to forest,their splendour was matched by the inimical beauty of the birds who dartedout to pursue them. Or sometimes they settled on the white and wax-likeblooms of the plant that creeps and clambers about the trees of theforest; and their purple wings flashed out on the great blossoms as, whenthe caravans go from Nurl to Thace, the gleaming silks flash out upon thesnow, where the crafty merchants spread them one by o
ne to astonish themountaineers of the Hills of Noor.

  But upon men and beasts the sun sent drowsiness. The river monsters alongthe river's marge lay dormant in the slime. The sailors pitched apavilion, with golden tassels, for the captain upon the deck, and thenwent, all but the helmsman, under a sail that they had hung as an awningbetween two masts. Then they told tales to one another, each of his owncity or of the miracles of his god, until all were fallen asleep. Thecaptain offered me the shade of his pavillion with the gold tassels, andthere we talked for a while, he telling me that he was taking merchandiseto Perdondaris, and that he would take back to fair Belzoond thingsappertaining to the affairs of the sea. Then, as I watched through thepavilion's opening the brilliant birds and butterflies that crossed andrecrossed over the river, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was a monarchentering his capital underneath arches of flags, and all the musicians ofthe world were there, playing melodiously their instruments; but no onecheered.

  In the afternoon, as the day grew cooler again, I awoke and found thecaptain buckling on his scimitar, which he had taken off him while herested.

  And now we were approaching the wide court of Astahahn, which opens uponthe river. Strange boats of antique design were chained there to thesteps. As we neared it we saw the open marble court, on three sides ofwhich stood the city fronting on colonnades. And in the court and alongthe colonnades the people of that city walked with solemnity and careaccording to the rites of ancient ceremony. All in that city was ofancient device; the carving on the houses, which, when age had broken it,remained unrepaired, was of the remotest times, and everywhere wererepresented in stone beasts that have long since passed away fromEarth--the dragon, the griffin, the hippogriffin, and the differentspecies of gargoyle. Nothing was to be found, whether material or custom,that was new in Astahahn. Now they took no notice at all of us as we wentby, but continued their processions and ceremonies in the ancient city,and the sailors, knowing their custom, took no notice of them. But Icalled, as we came near, to one who stood beside the water's edge, askinghim what men did in Astahahn and what their merchandise was, and with whomthey traded. He said, "Here we have fettered and manacled Time, who wouldotherwise slay the gods."

  I asked him what gods they worshipped in that city, and he said, "Allthose gods whom Time has not yet slain." Then he turned from me and wouldsay no more, but busied himself in behaving in accordance with ancientcustom. And so, according to the will of Yann, we drifted onwards and leftAstahahn. The river widened below Astahahn, and we found in greaterquantities such birds as prey on fishes. And they were very wonderful intheir plumage, and they came not out of the jungle, but flew, with theirlong necks stretched out before them, and their legs lying on the windbehind, straight up the river over the mid-stream.

  And now the evening began to gather in. A thick white mist had appearedover the river, and was softly rising higher. It clutched at the treeswith long impalpable arms, it rose higher and higher, chilling the air;and white shapes moved away into the jungle as though the ghosts ofshipwrecked mariners were searching stealthily in the darkness for thespirits of evil that long ago had wrecked them on the Yann.

  As the sun sank behind the field of orchids that grew on the matted summitof the jungle, the river monsters came wallowing out of the slime in whichthey had reclined during the heat of the day, and the great beasts of thejungle came down to drink. The butterflies a while since were gone torest. In little narrow tributaries that we passed night seemed already tohave fallen, though the sun which had disappeared from us had not yet set.

  And now the birds of the jungle came flying home far over us, with thesunlight glistening pink upon their breasts, and lowered their pinions assoon as they saw the Yann, and dropped into the trees. And the widgeonbegan to go up the river in great companies, all whistling, and then wouldsuddenly wheel and all go down again. And there shot by us the small andarrow-like teal; and we heard the manifold cries of flocks of geese, whichthe sailors told me had recently come in from crossing over the Lispasianranges; every year they come by the same way, close by the peak of Mluna,leaving it to the left, and the mountain eagles know the way they comeand--men say--the very hour, and every year they expect them by the sameway as soon as the snows have fallen upon the Northern Plains. But soon itgrew so dark that we heard those birds no more, and only heard thewhirring of their wings, and of countless others besides, until they allsettled down along the banks of the river, and it was the hour when thebirds of the night went forth. Then the sailors lit the lanterns for thenight, and huge moths appeared, flapping about the ship, and at momentstheir gorgeous colours would be revealed by the lanterns, then they wouldpass into the night again, where all was black. And again the sailorsprayed, and thereafter we supped and slept, and the helmsman took ourlives into his care.

  When I awoke I found that we had indeed come to Perdondaris, that famouscity. For there it stood upon the left of us, a city fair and notable, andall the more pleasant for our eyes to see after the jungle that was solong with us. And we were anchored by the market-place, and the captain'smerchandise was all displayed, and a merchant of Perdondaris stood lookingat it. And the captain had his scimitar in his hand, and was beating withit in anger upon the deck, and the splinters were flying up from the whiteplanks; for the merchant had offered him a price for his merchandise thatthe captain declared to be an insult to himself and his country's gods,whom he now said to be great and terrible gods, whose curses were to bedreaded. But the merchant waved his hands, which were of great fatness,showing the pink palms, and swore that of himself he thought not at all,but only of the poor folk in the huts beyond the city to whom he wished tosell the merchandise for as low a price as possible, leaving noremuneration for himself. For the merchandise was mostly the thicktoomarund carpets that in the winter keep the wind from the floor, andtollub which the people smoke in pipes. Therefore the merchant said if heoffered a piffek more the poor folk must go without their toomarunds whenthe winter came, and without their tollub in the evenings, or else he andhis aged father must starve together. Thereat the captain lifted hisscimitar to his own throat, saying that he was now a ruined man, and thatnothing remained to him but death. And while he was carefully lifting hisbeard with his left hand, the merchant eyed the merchandise again, andsaid that rather than see so worthy a captain die, a man for whom he hadconceived an especial love when first he saw the manner in which hehandled his ship, he and his aged father should starve together andtherefore he offered fifteen piffeks more.

  When he said this the captain prostrated himself and prayed to his godsthat they might yet sweeten this merchant's bitter heart--to his littlelesser gods, to the gods that bless Belzoond.

  At last the merchant offered yet five piffeks more. Then the captain wept,for he said that he was deserted of his gods; and the merchant also wept,for he said that he was thinking of his aged father, and of how he soonwould starve, and he hid his weeping face with both his hands, and eyedthe tollub again between his fingers. And so the bargain was concluded,and the merchant took the toomarund and tollub, paying for them out of agreat clinking purse. And these were packed up into bales again, and threeof the merchant's slaves carried them upon their heads into the city. Andall the while the sailors had sat silent, cross-legged in a crescent uponthe deck, eagerly watching the bargain, and now a murmur of satisfactionarose among them, and they began to compare it among themselves with otherbargains that they had known. And I found out from them that there areseven merchants in Perdondaris, and that they had all come to the captainone by one before the bargaining began, and each had warned him privatelyagainst the others. And to all the merchants the captain had offered thewine of his own country, that they make in fair Belzoond, but could in nowise persuade them to it. But now that the bargain was over, and thesailors were seated at the first meal of the day, the captain appearedamong them with a cask of that wine, and we broached it with care and allmade merry together. And the captain was glad in his heart because he knewthat he had much honour
in the eyes of his men because of the bargain thathe had made. So the sailors drank the wine of their native land, and soontheir thoughts were back in fair Belzoond and the little neighbouringcities of Durl and Duz.

  But for me the captain poured into a little jar some heavy yellow winefrom a small jar which he kept apart among his sacred things. Thick andsweet it was, even like honey, yet there was in its heart a mighty, ardentfire which had authority over souls of men. It was made, the captain toldme, with great subtlety by the secret craft of a family of six who livedin a hut on the mountains of Hian Min. Once in these mountains, he said,he followed the spoor of a bear, and he came suddenly on a man of thatfamily who had hunted the same bear, and he was at the end of a narrow waywith precipice all about him, and his spear was sticking in the bear, andthe wound was not fatal, and he had no other weapon. And the bear waswalking towards the man, very slowly because his wound irked him--yet hewas now very close. And what he captain did he would not say, but everyyear as soon as the snows are hard, and travelling is easy on the HianMin, that man comes down to the market in the plains, and always leavesfor the captain in the gate of fair Belzoond a vessel of that pricelesssecret wine.

  And as I sipped the wine and the captain talked, I remembered me ofstalwart noble things that I had long since resolutely planned, and mysoul seemed to grow mightier within me and to dominate the whole tide ofthe Yann. It may be that I then slept. Or, if I did not, I do not nowminutely recollect every detail of that morning's occupations. Towardsevening, I awoke and wishing to see Perdondaris before we left in themorning, and being unable to wake the captain, I went ashore alone.Certainly Perdondaris was a powerful city; it was encompassed by a wall ofgreat strength and altitude, having in it hollow ways for troops to walkin, and battlements along it all the way, and fifteen strong towers on itin every mile, and copper plaques low down where men could read them,telling in all the languages of those parts of the earth--one language oneach plaque--the tale of how an army once attacked Perdondaris and whatbefell that army. Then I entered Perdondaris and found all the peopledancing, clad in brilliant silks, and playing on the tambang as theydanced. For a fearful thunderstorm had terrified them while I slept, andthe fires of death, they said, had danced over Perdondaris, and now thethunder had gone leaping away large and black and hideous, they said, overthe distant hills, and had turned round snarling at them, shoving hisgleaming teeth, and had stamped, as he went, upon the hilltops until theyrang as though they had been bronze. And often and again they stopped intheir merry dances and prayed to the God they knew not, saying, "O, Godthat we know not, we thank Thee for sending the thunder back to hishills." And I went on and came to the market-place, and lying there uponthe marble pavement I saw the merchant fast asleep and breathing heavily,with his face and the palms of his hands towards the sky, and slaves werefanning him to keep away the flies. And from the market-place I came to asilver temple and then to a palace of onyx, and there were many wonders inPerdondaris, and I would have stayed and seen them all, but as I came tothe outer wall of the city I suddenly saw in it a huge ivory gate. For awhile I paused and admired it, then I came nearer and perceived thedreadful truth. The gate was carved out of one solid piece!

  I fled at once through the gateway and down to the ship, and even as I ranI thought that I heard far off on the hills behind me the tramp of thefearful beast by whom that mass of ivory was shed, who was perhaps eventhen looking for his other tusk. When I was on the ship again I feltsafer, and I said nothing to the sailors of what I had seen.

  And now the captain was gradually awakening. Now night was rolling up fromthe East and North, and only the pinnacles of the towers of Perdondarisstill took the fallen sunlight. Then I went to the captain and told himquietly of the thing I had seen. And he questioned me at once about thegate, in a low voice, that the sailors might not know; and I told him howthe weight of the thing was such that it could not have been brought fromafar, and the captain knew that it had not been there a year ago. Weagreed that such a beast could never have been killed by any assault ofman, and that the gate must have been a fallen tusk, and one fallen nearand recently. Therefore he decided that it were better to flee at once; sohe commanded, and the sailors went to the sails, and others raised theanchor to the deck, and just as the highest pinnacle of marble lost thelast rays of the sun we left Perdondaris, that famous city. And night camedown and cloaked Perdondaris and hid it from our eyes, which as thingshave happened will never see it again; for I have heard since thatsomething swift and wonderful has suddenly wrecked Perdondaris in aday--towers, walls and people.

  And the night deepened over the River Yann, a night all white with stars.And with the night there rose the helmsman's song. As soon as he hadprayed he began to sing to cheer himself all through the lonely night. Butfirst he prayed, praying the helmsman's prayer. And this is what Iremember of it, rendered into English with a very feeble equivalent of therhythm that seemed so resonant in those tropic nights.

  To whatever god may hear.

  Wherever there be sailors whether of river or sea: whether their way bedark or whether through storm: whether their peril be of beast or of rock:or from enemy lurking on land or pursuing on sea: wherever the tiller iscold or the helmsman stiff: wherever sailors sleep or helmsmen watch:guard, guide and return us to the old land, that has known us: to the farhomes that we know.

  To all the gods that are.

  To whatever god may hear.

  So he prayed, and there was silence. And the sailors laid them down torest for the night. The silence deepened, and was only broken by theripples of Yann that lightly touched our prow. Sometimes some monster ofthe river coughed.

  Silence and ripples, ripples and silence again.

  And then his loneliness came upon the helmsman, and he began to sing. Andhe sang the market songs of Durl and Duz, and the old dragon-legends ofBelzoond.

  Many a song he sang, telling to spacious and exotic Yann the little talesand trifles of his city of Durl. And the songs welled up over the blackjungle and came into the clear cold air above, and the great bands ofstars that look on Yann began to know the affairs of Durl and Duz, and ofthe shepherds that dwelt in the fields between, and the flocks that theyhad, and the loves that they had loved, and all the little things thatthey had hoped to do. And as I lay wrapped up in skins and blankets,listening to those songs, and watching the fantastic shapes of the greattrees like to black giants stalking through the night, I suddenly fellasleep.

  When I awoke great mists were trailing away from the Yann. And the flow ofthe river was tumbling now tumultuously, and little waves appeared; forYann had scented from afar the ancient crags of Glorm, and knew that theirravines lay cool before him wherein he should meet the merry wild Irillionrejoicing from fields of snow. So he shook off from him the torpid sleepthat had come upon him in the hot and scented jungle, and forgot itsorchids and its butterflies, and swept on turbulent, expectant, strong;and soon the snowy peaks of the Hills of Glorm came glittering into view.And now the sailors were waking up from sleep. Soon we all ate, and thenthe helmsman laid him down to sleep while a comrade took his place, andthey all spread over him their choicest furs.

  And in a while we heard the sound that the Irillion made as she came downdancing from the fields of snow.

  And then we saw the ravine in the Hills of Glorm lying precipitous andsmooth before us, into which we were carried by the leaps of Yann. And nowwe left the steamy jungle and breathed the mountain air; the sailors stoodup and took deep breaths of it, and thought of their own far off Acroctianhills on which were Durl and Duz--below them in the plains stands fairBelzoond.

  A great shadow brooded between the cliffs of Glorm, but the crags wereshining above us like gnarled moons, and almost lit the gloom. Louder andlouder came the Irillion's song, and the sound of her dancing down fromthe fields of snow. And soon we saw her white and full of mists, andwreathed with rainbows delicate and small that she had plucked up near themountain's summit from some celestial garden of the Sun. Then
she wentaway seawards with the huge grey Yann and the ravine widened, and openedupon the world, and our rocking ship came through to the light of the day.

  And all that morning and all the afternoon we passed through the marshesof Pondoovery; and Yann widened there, and flowed solemnly and slowly, andthe captain bade the sailors beat on bells to overcome the dreariness ofthe marshes.

  At last the Irusian mountains came in sight, nursing the villages ofPen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo, where priestspropitiate the avalanche with wine and maize. Then night came down overthe plains of Tlun, and we saw the lights of Cappadarnia. We heard thePathnites beating upon drums as we passed Imaut and Golzunda, then all butthe helmsman slept. And villages scattered along the banks of the Yannheard all that night in the helmsman's unknown tongue the little songs ofcities that they knew not.

  I awoke before dawn with a feeling that I was unhappy before I rememberedwhy. Then I recalled that by the evening of the approaching day, accordingto all foreseen probabilities, we should come to Bar-Wul-Yann, and Ishould part from the captain and his sailors. And I had liked the manbecause he had given me of his yellow wine that was set apart among hissacred things, and many a story he had told me about his fair Belzoondbetween the Acroctian hills and the Hian Min. And I had liked the waysthat his sailors had, and the prayers that they prayed at evening side byside, grudging not one another their alien gods. And I had a liking toofor the tender way in which they often spoke of Durl and Duz, for it isgood that men should love their native cities and the little hills thathold those cities up.

  And I had come to know who would meet them when they returned to theirhomes, and where they thought the meetings would take place, some in avalley of the Acroctian hills where the road comes up from Yann, others inthe gateway of one or another of the three cities, and others by thefireside in the home. And I thought of the danger that had menaced us allalike outside Perdondaris, a danger that, as things have happened, wasvery real.

  And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the cold and lonelynight, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands. And as Ithought of this the helmsman ceased to sing, and I looked up and saw apale light had appeared in the sky, and the lonely night had passed; andthe dawn widened, and the sailors awoke.

  And soon we saw the tide of the Sea himself advancing resolute betweenYann's borders, and Yann sprang lithely at him and they struggled awhile;then Yann and all that was his were pushed back northward, so that thesailors had to hoist the sails and, the wind being favorable, we stillheld onwards.

  And we passed Gondara and Narl and Haz. And we saw memorable, holy Golnuz,and heard the pilgrims praying.

  When we awoke after the midday rest we were coming near to Nen, the lastof the cities on the River Yann. And the jungle was all about us onceagain, and about Nen; but the great Mloon ranges stood up over all things,and watched the city from beyond the jungle.

  Here we anchored, and the captain and I went up into the city and foundthat the Wanderers had come into Nen.

  And the Wanderers were a weird, dark, tribe, that once in every sevenyears came down from the peaks of Mloon, having crossed by a pass that isknown to them from some fantastic land that lies beyond. And the people ofNen were all outside their houses, and all stood wondering at their ownstreets. For the men and women of the Wanderers had crowded all the ways,and every one was doing some strange thing. Some danced astounding dancesthat they had learned from the desert wind, rapidly curving and swirlingtill the eye could follow no longer. Others played upon instrumentsbeautiful wailing tunes that were full of horror, which souls had taughtthem lost by night in the desert, that strange far desert from which theWanderers came.

  None of their instruments were such as were known in Nen nor in any partof the region of the Yann; even the horns out of which some were made wereof beasts that none had seen along the river, for they were barbed at thetips. And they sang, in the language of none, songs that seemed to be akinto the mysteries of night and to the unreasoned fear that haunts darkplaces.

  Bitterly all the dogs of Nen distrusted them. And the Wanderers told oneanother fearful tales, for though no one in Nen knew ought of theirlanguage yet they could see the fear on the listeners' faces, and as thetale wound on the whites of their eyes showed vividly in terror as theeyes of some little beast whom the hawk has seized. Then the teller of thetale would smile and stop, and another would tell his story, and theteller of the first tale's lips would chatter with fear. And if somedeadly snake chanced to appear the Wanderers would greet him as a brother,and the snake would seem to give his greetings to them before he passed onagain. Once that most fierce and lethal of tropic snakes, the giantlythra, came out of the jungle and all down the street, the central streetof Nen, and none of the Wanderers moved away from him, but they all playedsonorously on drums, as though he had been a person of much honour; andthe snake moved through the midst of them and smote none.

  Even the Wanderers' children could do strange things, for if any one ofthem met with a child of Nen the two would stare at each other in silencewith large grave eyes; then the Wanderers' child would slowly draw fromhis turban a live fish or snake. And the children of Nen could do nothingof that kind at all.

  Much I should have wished to stay and hear the hymn with which they greetthe night, that is answered by the wolves on the heights of Mloon, but itwas now time to raise the anchor again that the captain might return fromBar-Wul-Yann upon the landward tide. So we went on board and continueddown the Yann. And the captain and I spoke little, for we were thinking ofour parting, which should be for long, and we watched instead thesplendour of the westerning sun. For the sun was a ruddy gold, but a faintmist cloaked the jungle, lying low, and into it poured the smoke of thelittle jungle cities, and the smoke of them met together in the mist andjoined into one haze, which became purple, and was lit by the sun, as thethoughts of men become hallowed by some great and sacred thing. Some timesone column from a lonely house would rise up higher than the cities'smoke, and gleam by itself in the sun.

  And now as the sun's last rays were nearly level, we saw the sight that Ihad come to see, for from two mountains that stood on either shore twocliffs of pink marble came out into the river, all glowing in the light ofthe low sun, and they were quite smooth and of mountainous altitude, andthey nearly met, and Yann went tumbling between them and found the sea.

  And this was Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann, and in the distance throughthat barrier's gap I saw the azure indescribable sea, where littlefishing-boats went gleaming by.

  And the sun set, and the brief twilight came, and the exultation of theglory of Bar-Wul-Yann was gone, yet still the pink cliffs glowed, thefairest marvel that the eye beheld--and this in a land of wonders. Andsoon the twilight gave place to the coming out of stars, and the coloursof Bar-Wul-Yann went dwindling away. And the sight of those cliffs was tome as some chord of music that a master's hand had launched from theviolin, and which carries to Heaven or Faery the tremulous spirits of men.

  And now by the shore they anchored and went no further, for they weresailors of the river and not of the sea, and knew the Yann but not thetides beyond.

  And the time was come when the captain and I must part, he to go back tohis fair Belzoond in sight of the distant peaks of the Hian Min, and I tofind my way by strange means back to those hazy fields that all poetsknow, wherein stand small mysterious cottages through whose windows,looking westwards, you may see the fields of men, and looking eastwardssee glittering elfin mountains, tipped with snow, going range on rangeinto the region of Myth, and beyond it into the kingdom of Fantasy, whichpertain to the Lands of Dream. Long we regarded one another, knowing thatwe should meet no more, for my fancy is weakening as the years slip by,and I go ever more seldom into the Lands of Dream. Then we clasped hands,uncouthly on his part, for it is not the method of greeting in hiscountry, and he commended my soul to the care of his own gods, to hislittle lesser gods, the humble ones, to the gods that bless Belzoond.

>