stand, held close to him his lyre, but raised on high his
staff of oak. Then from behind one struck him with a keen
knife, and he sank, and lay in his blood. The place was the
edge of a glade, where the trees thinned away and the sky
might be seen overhead. And now, across the blue heaven,
came a second line of the south-ward-going cranes. They flew
low, they flapped their wings, and the wood heard their
crying. Then Ibycus the poet raised his arms to his brothers
the birds. 'Ye cranes, flying between earth and heaven,
avenge shed blood, as is right!'

"Hoarse screamed the cranes flying overhead. Ibycus the poet
closed his eyes, pressed his lips to Mother Earth, and died.
The cranes screamed again, circling the wood, then in a long
line sailed southward through the blue air until they might
neither be heard nor seen. The robbers stared after them.
They laughed, but without mirth. Then, stooping to the body
of Ibycus, they would have rifled it when, hearing a sudden
sound of men's voices entering the wood, they took violent
fright and fled."

Strickland looked still at the reader. Alexander had straightened
himself. He was speaking rather than reading. His voice had
intensities and shadows. His brows had drawn together, his eyes
glowed, and he stood with nostrils somewhat distended. The emotion
that he plainly showed seemed to gather about the injury done and the
appeal of Ibycus. The earlier Ibycus had not seemed greatly to
interest him. Strickland was used to stormy youth, to its passional
moments, sudden glows, burnings, sympathies, defiances, lurid shows of
effects with the causes largely unapparent. It was his trade to know