"Mr.Vane,"he said,"do you not know why you have not yet done anything worth doing?""Because I have been a fool,"I answered.
"Wherein?"
"In everything."
"Which do you count your most indiscreet action?""Bringing the princess to life:I ought to have left her to her just fate.""Nay,now you talk foolishly!You could not have done otherwise than you did,not knowing she was evil!--But you never brought any one to life!How could you,yourself dead?""I dead?"I cried.
"Yes,"he answered;"and you will be dead,so long as you refuse to die.""Back to the old riddling!"I returned scornfully.
"Be persuaded,and go home with me,"he continued gently."The most--nearly the only foolish thing you ever did,was to run from our dead."I pressed the horse's ribs,and he was off like a sudden wind.Igave him a pat on the side of the neck,and he went about in a sharp-driven curve,"close to the ground,like a cat when scratchingly she wheels about after a mouse,"leaning sideways till his mane swept the tops of the heather.
Through the dark I heard the wings of the raven.Five quick flaps I heard,and he perched on the horse's head.The horse checked himself instantly,ploughing up the ground with his feet.
"Mr.Vane,"croaked the raven,"think what you are doing!Twice already has evil befallen you--once from fear,and once from heedlessness:breach of word is far worse;it is a crime.""The Little Ones are in frightful peril,and I brought it upon them!"I cried."--But indeed I will not break my word to you.I will return,and spend in your house what nights--what days--what years you please.""I tell you once more you will do them other than good if you go to-night,"he insisted.
But a false sense of power,a sense which had no root and was merely vibrated into me from the strength of the horse,had,alas,rendered me too stupid to listen to anything he said!
"Would you take from me my last chance of reparation?"I cried.
"This time there shall be no shirking!It is my duty,and I will go--if I perish for it!""Go,then,foolish boy!"he returned,with anger in his croak."Take the horse,and ride to failure!May it be to humility!"He spread his wings and flew.Again I pressed the lean ribs under me.
"After the spotted leopardess!"I whispered in his ear.
He turned his head this way and that,snuffing the air;then started,and went a few paces in a slow,undecided walk.Suddenly he quickened his walk;broke into a trot;began to gallop,and in a few moments his speed was tremendous.He seemed to see in the dark;never stumbled,not once faltered,not once hesitated.I sat as on the ridge of a wave.I felt under me the play of each individual muscle:his joints were so elastic,and his every movement glided so into the next,that not once did he jar me.His growing swiftness bore him along until he flew rather than ran.
The wind met and passed us like a tornado.
Across the evil hollow we sped like a bolt from an arblast.No monster lifted its neck;all knew the hoofs that thundered over their heads!We rushed up the hills,we shot down their farther slopes;from the rocky chasms of the river-bed he did not swerve;he held on over them his fierce,terrible gallop.The moon,half-way up the heaven,gazed with a solemn trouble in her pale countenance.
Rejoicing in the power of my steed and in the pride of my life,Isat like a king and rode.
We were near the middle of the many channels,my horse every other moment clearing one,sometimes two in his stride,and now and then gathering himself for a great bounding leap,when the moon reached the key-stone of her arch.Then came a wonder and a terror:she began to descend rolling like the nave of Fortune's wheel bowled by the gods,and went faster and faster.Like our own moon,this one had a human face,and now the broad forehead now the chin was uppermost as she rolled.I gazed aghast.
Across the ravines came the howling of wolves.An ugly fear began to invade the hollow places of my heart;my confidence was on the wane!The horse maintained his headlong swiftness,with ears pricked forward,and thirsty nostrils exulting in the wind his career created.But there was the moon jolting like an old chariot-wheel down the hill of heaven,with awful boding!She rolled at last over the horizon-edge and disappeared,carrying all her light with her.
The mighty steed was in the act of clearing a wide shallow channel when we were caught in the net of the darkness.His head dropped;its impetus carried his helpless bulk across,but he fell in a heap on the margin,and where he fell he lay.I got up,kneeled beside him,and felt him all over.Not a bone could I find broken,but he was a horse no more.I sat down on the body,and buried my face in my hands.