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THE SHADOWS,
to one elevated above the rest, not in a pulpit, or on a platform, but on the stilts of his own legs, elongated for the nonce. The aurora, right overhead, lighted up the lake and the sides of the mountains, by sending down from the zenith, nearly to the surface of the lake, great folded vapours, luminous with all the colours of a faint rainbow.
Many, however, as the words were that passed on all sides, not a shadow of a sound reached the ears of the king : the shadow-speech could not enter his corporeal organs. One of his guides, however, seeing that the king wanted to hear and could not, went through a strange manipulation of his head and ears ; after which he could hear perfectly, though still only the voice to which, for
the time, he directed his attention. This, how-evct, was a great advantage, and one which the king longed to carry back with him to the world of men. |
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