LILITH A Fantasy Novel By George MacDonald - online book

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72                                     LILITH
The moon shone till the sun rose, and all the night long I had glimpses of a woman moving at her will above the strife-tormented multitude, now on this front now on that, one outstretched arm urging the fight, the other pressed against her side. ' Ye are men : slay one another! ' she shouted. I saw her dead eyes and her dark spot, and recalled what I had seen the night before.
Such was the battle of the dead, which I saw and heard as I lay under the tree.
Just before sunrise, a breeze went through the forest, and a voice cried, Let the dead bury their dead ! ' At the word the contending thousands dropped noise­less, and when the sun looked in, he saw never a bone, but here and there a withered branch.
I rose and resumed my journey, through as quiet a wood as ever grew out of the quiet earth. For the wind of the morning had ceased when the sun appeared, and the trees were silent. Not a bird sang, not a squirrel, mouse, or weasel showed itself, not a belated moth flew athwart my path. But as I went I kept watch over myself, nor dared let my eyes rest on any forest-shape. All the time I seemed to hear faint sounds of mattock and spade and hurtling bones : any moment my eyes might open on things I would not see ! Daylight prudence muttered that perhaps, to appear, ten thousand phantoms awaited only my con­senting fancy.
In the middle of the afternoon I came out of the wood—to find before me a second net of dry water­courses. I thought at first that I had wandered from my attempted line, and reversed my direction; but I soon saw it was not so, and concluded presently that I had
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