On its death came a blaring as of all the trumpets of conquering hosts
since the first Pharaoh led his swarms--triumphal, compelling!
Alexander's clamouring hosts, brazen-throated wolf-horns of Caesar's
legions, blare of trumpets of Genghis Khan and his golden horde,
clangor of the locust levies of Tamerlane, bugles of Napoleon's armies
--war-shout of all earth's conquerors! And it died!
Fast upon it, a throbbing, muffled tumult of harp sounds, mellownesses
of myriads of wood horns, the subdued sweet shrilling of multitudes of
flutes, Pandean pipings--inviting, carrying with them the calling of
waterfalls in the hidden places, rushing brooks and murmuring forest
winds--calling, calling, languorous, lulling, dripping into the brain
like the very honeyed essence of sound.
And after them a silence in which the memory of the music seemed to
beat, to beat ever more faintly, through every quivering nerve.
From me all fear, all apprehension, had fled. In their place was
nothing but joyous anticipation, a supernal freedom from even the
shadow of the shadow of care or sorrow; not now did anything
matter--Olaf or his haunted, hate-filled eyes; Throckmartin or his
fate--nothing of pain, nothing of agony, nothing of striving nor
endeavour nor despair in that wide outer world that had turned
suddenly to a troubled dream.
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