nights upon the mountain was sometimes the voice of traffic, and then of
church bells, and then of bugles, but oftenest it was the voice of red
war; and it was all incoherent, and she was quite mad.

"The third night it rained heavily all night long, but I stayed up there
to watch the soul of my native city. And she still sat staring straight
before her, raving; but here voice was gentler now, there were more chimes
in it, and occasional song. Midnight passed, and the rain still swept down
on me, and still the solitudes of the mountain were full of the mutterings
of the poor mad city. And the hours after midnight came, the cold hours
wherein sick men die.

"Suddenly I was aware of great shapes moving in the rain, and heard the
sound of voices that were not of my city nor yet of any that I ever knew.
And presently I discerned, though faintly, the souls of a great concourse
of cities, all bending over Andelsprutz and comforting her, and the
ravines of the mountains roared that night with the voices of cities that
had lain still for centuries. For there came the soul of Camelot that had
so long ago forsaken Usk; and there was Ilion, all girt with towers, still
cursing the sweet face of ruinous Helen; I saw there Babylon and
Persepolis, and the bearded face of bull-like Nineveh, and Athens mourning
her immortal gods.

"All these souls if cities that were dead spoke that night on the mountain
to my city and soothed her, until at last she muttered of war no longer,
and her eyes stared wildly no more, but she hid her face in her hands and
for some while wept softly. At last she arose, and walking slowly and with
bended head, and leaning upon Ilion and Carthage, went mournfully
eastwards; and the dust of her highways swirled behind her as she went, a
ghostly dust that never turned to mud in all that drenching rain. And so