And they danced,
but danced idly, on the ways of the air, as some haughty queen of
distant conquered lands might in her poverty and exile dance, in some
encampment of the gipsies, for the mere bread to live by, but beyond
that would never abate her pride to dance for a fragment more.
And the butterflies sung of strange and painted things, of purple
orchids and of lost pink cities and the monstrous colours of the
jungle's decay. And they, too, were among those whose voices are not
discernible by human ears. And as they floated above the river, going
from forest to forest, their splendour was matched by the inimical
beauty of the birds who darted out to pursue them. Or sometimes they
settled on the white and wax-like blooms of the plant that creeps and
clambers about the trees of the forest; and their purple wings flashed
out on the great blossoms as, when the caravans go from Nurl to Thace,
the gleaming silks flash out upon the snow, where the crafty merchants
spread them one by one to astonish the mountaineers of the Hills of
Noor.
But upon men and beasts the sun sent a drowsiness. The river monsters
along the river's marge lay dormant in the slime. The sailors pitched
a pavilion, with golden tassels, for the captain upon the deck, and
then went, all but the helmsman, under a sail that they had hung as an
awning between two masts. Then they told tales to one another, each of
his own city or of the miracles of his god, until all were fallen
asleep.
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