It was
seven days since he first heard it in the market-place, and in that seven
days he had realized that nothing in this world which has ever been,
really ceases to be. Presently, the call was repeated. On the three
former occasions there had been no repetition. The call had trembled in
the air but once and had died away into unbroken silence. Now, however,
it rang out with an added poignancy. It was like a bird calling to its
vanished mate.
With sudden resolution Druse turned. Leaving the veranda, he walked
slowly behind the house into the woods and stood still under the branches
of a great cedar. Raising his head, a strange, solemn note came from his
lips; but the voice died away in a sharp broken sound which was more
human than birdlike, which had the shrill insistence of authority. The
call to him had been almost ventriloquial in its nature. His lips had not
moved at all.
There was silence for a moment after he had called into the void, as it
were, and then there appeared suddenly from behind a clump of juniper, a
young man of dark face and upright bearing. He made a slow obeisance with
a gesture suggestive of the Oriental world, yet not like the usual
gesture of the East Indian, the Turk or the Persian; it was composite of
all.
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