The song and its melody floated out into the night, away and over
the sleeping countryside. In no way breaking the silence; rising
up out of it, rather. It was as if Nature dreamed as she lay
sleeping, a dream clear-cut, melodious. Over all the moon hung
full, turning the world to silver. Never had music so fairy a
setting.

"Then to Sylvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling,
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling
To her let us garlands bring"

Half-past eleven o'clock of a fine moonlit night, and I was alone
with the car all among the Carinthian Alps. It was for Fladstadt
that I was making. That was the Bairlings' nearest town. Their
place, St. Martin, lay twenty odd miles from Fladstadt. But in
the town people would show me the way. At St. Martin I should
find Daphne and the others, newly come from Vienna this
afternoon. Friends of Jonah's, the Bairlings. None of us others
knew them.

At ten o'clock in the morning I had slid out of Trieste,
reckoning to reach Fladstadt in twelve hours. And, till I lost
my way, I had come well. I had lost it at half-past nine and
only discovered that I had lost it an hour later. It was too
late to turn back then. I tried to get on and across by
by-roads- always a dangerous game. Just when I was getting
desperate I had chanced on a signpost pointing to the town I
sought. The next moment one of the tires had gone.