It was still dark when I began to be aware of a far-off,confused,rushing noise,mingled with faint cries.It grew and grew until a tumult as of gathering multitudes filled the wood.On all sides at once the sounds drew nearer;the spot where I lay seemed the centre of a commotion that extended throughout the forest.I scarce moved hand or foot lest I should betray my presence to hostile things.
The moon at length approached the forest,and came slowly into it:
with her first gleam the noises increased to a deafening uproar,and I began to see dim shapes about me.As she ascended and grew brighter,the noises became yet louder,and the shapes clearer.Afurious battle was raging around me.Wild cries and roars of rage,shock of onset,struggle prolonged,all mingled with words articulate,surged in my ears.Curses and credos,snarls and sneers,laughter and mockery,sacred names and howls of hate,came huddling in chaotic interpenetration.Skeletons and phantoms fought in maddest confusion.
Swords swept through the phantoms:they only shivered.Maces crashed on the skeletons,shattering them hideously:not one fell or ceased to fight,so long as a single joint held two bones together.Bones of men and horses lay scattered and heaped;grinding and crunching them under foot fought the skeletons.Everywhere charged the bone-gaunt white steeds;everywhere on foot or on wind-blown misty battle-horses,raged and ravened and raved the indestructible spectres;weapons and hoofs clashed and crushed;while skeleton jaws and phantom-throats swelled the deafening tumult with the war-cry of every opinion,bad or good,that had bred strife,injustice,cruelty in any world.The holiest words went with the most hating blow.Lie-distorted truths flew hurtling in the wind of javelins and bones.Every moment some one would turn against his comrades,and fight more wildly than before,THE TRUTH!THE TRUTH!still his cry.One I noted who wheeled ever in a circle,and smote on all sides.Wearied out,a pair would sit for a minute side by side,then rise and renew the fierce combat.None stooped to comfort the fallen,or stepped wide to spare him.
The moon shone till the sun rose,and all the night long I had glimpses of a woman moving at her will above the strife-tormented multitude,now on this front now on that,one outstretched arm urging the fight,the other pressed against her side."Ye are men:
slay one another!"she shouted.I saw her dead eyes and her dark spot,and recalled what I had seen the night before.
Such was the battle of the dead,which I saw and heard as I lay under the tree.
Just before sunrise,a breeze went through the forest,and a voice cried,"Let the dead bury their dead!"At the word the contending thousands dropped noiseless,and when the sun looked in,he saw never a bone,but here and there a withered branch.
I rose and resumed my journey,through as quiet a wood as ever grew out of the quiet earth.For the wind of the morning had ceased when the sun appeared,and the trees were silent.Not a bird sang,not a squirrel,mouse,or weasel showed itself,not a belated moth flew athwart my path.But as I went I kept watch over myself,nor dared let my eyes rest on any forest-shape.All the time I seemed to hear faint sounds of mattock and spade and hurtling bones:any moment my eyes might open on things I would not see!Daylight prudence muttered that perhaps,to appear,ten thousand phantoms awaited only my consenting fancy.
In the middle of the afternoon I came out of the wood--to find before me a second net of dry water-courses.I thought at first that Ihad wandered from my attempted line,and reversed my direction;but I soon saw it was not so,and concluded presently that I had come to another branch of the same river-bed.I began at once to cross it,and was in the bottom of a wide channel when the sun set.
I sat down to await the moon,and growing sleepy,stretched myself on the moss.The moment my head was down,I heard the sounds of rushing streams--all sorts of sweet watery noises.The veiled melody of the molten music sang me into a dreamless sleep,and when I woke the sun was already up,and the wrinkled country widely visible.
Covered with shadows it lay striped and mottled like the skin of some wild animal.As the sun rose the shadows diminished,and it seemed as if the rocks were re-absorbing the darkness that had oozed out of them during the night.
Hitherto I had loved my Arab mare and my books more,I fear,than live man or woman;now at length my soul was athirst for a human presence,and I longed even after those inhabitants of this alien world whom the raven had so vaguely described as nearest my sort.
With heavy yet hoping heart,and mind haunted by a doubt whether Iwas going in any direction at all,I kept wearily travelling "north-west and by south."