"You are cold, I'm afraid."
To this day, I do not know in what language he replied--if, indeed! he spoke at all. My only recollection is of the eloquence of liquid, lustrous eyes, the confident certainty of comprehension which is the child's ere it can speak articulately.
"I am a Star-gazer; so the Fire draws me."
"Why?"
"Why? Surely all know it is the Star Fire which fell when She first came to me--Hai-me! Hai-me! When She first came and laid her hand in mine."
The drifting billows parted, showing the stars above his head, then closed again, blotting them out; blotting out all things, it seemed to me, even my own self as I sate listening to the faint wail which rose vaguely, filling the wide shadows.
"Io! Io! Disturber of dreams, why didst thou come? Io! Io! Bringer of dreams, why didst go? Lo! the Star fire was not thine though thou earnest with the Fire of the Star."
Through the pungent aroma of the burning branches, a faint breath of perfume from the sunset-dyed azalea swept, mingling with it, and so passing with it into the endless circling.
The lustrous eyes drooped, losing their brilliance; but when they looked up again only serene confident comprehension was there.
"In forest days none of us were Star-gazers, for there was no Rim to the world on which the following Footsteps could be seen. But when we left the forest for the upland, with its milch kine and seed grains, we learnt to look; for there was the Rim. And all things went to stand on it and disappear among the Stars.