LILITH A Fantasy Novel By George MacDonald - online book

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214
LILITH
CHAPTER XXXI
THE SEXTON'S OLD HOESE
I stood and watched the last gleam of the white leopardess melt away, then turned to follow my guide —but reluctantly. What had I to do with sleep? Surely reason was the same in every world, and what reason could there be in going to sleep with the dead, when the hour was calling the live man? Besides, no one would wake me, and how could I be certain of waking early—of waking at all ?—the sleepers in that house let morning glide into noon, and noon into night, nor ever stirred ! I murmured, but followed, for I knew not what else to do.
The librarian walked on in silence, and I walked silent as he. Time and space glided past us. The sun set; it began to grow dark, and I felt in the air the spreading cold of the chamber of death. My heart sank lower and lower. I began to lose sight of the lean, long-coated figure, and at length could no more hear his swishing stride through the heather. But then I heard instead the slow-flapping wings of the raven ; and, at intervals, now a firefly, now a gleaming butterfly rose into the rayless air.
By and by the moon appeared, slow crossing the far horizon.
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