And she listened intently, and she said, "I hear a sound of feet, a
thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, and they beat this
way!"

He said, "They are the feet of those that shall follow you. Lead on! make
a track to the water's edge! Where you stand now, the ground will be
beaten flat by ten thousand times ten thousand feet." And he said, "Have
you seen the locusts how they cross a stream? First one comes down to the
water-edge, and it is swept away, and then another comes and then another,
and then another, and at last with their bodies piled up a bridge is built
and the rest pass over."

She said, "And, of those that come first, some are swept away, and are
heard of no more; their bodies do not even build the bridge?"

"And are swept away, and are heard of no more--and what of that?" he said.

"And what of that--" she said.

"They make a track to the water's edge."

"They make a track to the water's edge--." And she said, "Over that bridge
which shall be built with our bodies, who will pass?"

He said, "The entire human race."

And the woman grasped her staff.

And I saw her turn down that dark path to the river.