But the dead, one of them seized one of her hands, and another
the other. They raised her to her feet, and led her along, and
her brother walked before. Thus was she borne away captive of her
dead, neither willing nor unwilling, of life and death equally
careless. Through the moonlight they led her from the city, and
over fields, and through valleys, and across rivers and seas--a
long journey; nor did she grow weary, for there was not life
enough in her to be made weary. The dead never spoke to her, and
she never spoke to them. Sometimes it seemed as if they spoke to
each other, but, if it were so, it concerned some shadowy matter,
no more to her than the talk of grasshoppers in the field, or of
beetles that weave their much-involved dances on the face of the
pool. Their voices were even too thin and remote to rouse her to
listen.
They came at length to a great mountain, and, as they were going
up the mountain, light began to grow, as if the sun were
beginning to rise. But she cared as little for the sun that was
to light the day as for the moon that had lighted the night, and
closed her eyes, that she might cover her soul with her eyelids.
Of a sudden a great splendor burst upon her, and through her
eyelids she was struck blind--blind with light and not with
darkness, for all was radiance about her. She was like a fish in
a sea of light.
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