Not for the world would the boy have said that the sound the artist heard was but a bird singing to the morning.
“I hear,” he answered.
The sun thrust up a beam of welcome, and with the first long, level ray, the artist sprang to his feet. He snatched the canvas that for twenty years had never known a brush and feverishly, madly, began to paint.
Color and line grew like a swifter life upon the canvas, strokes so rapid and so sure that the eye could scarcely follow them as they gave birth to form. The day was not yet an hour old when the artist laid down his palette.
“It is done!” he said. “It was well to wait. There is the message of the Sphinx!”
And, dropping his brushes on the boulder, the artist threw himself upon the ground, and, in a moment, was asleep.
Cramped and stiff, Perry rose and stretched himself. The sun rose over the lebbek-trees, warm and comforting.
Two tourists, early risers, coming from the hotel, strolled over to where the boy was standing. Seeing that they were about to speak, Perry held up his hand.
“Please!” he said softly; “he’s asleep.”
The first looked at the artist, recumbent on the sand.