While musing thus to himself, he stretched his weary limbs and body on the sweet-scented mossy cliff-top.
It was day certainly, but was he not now at home, in his own, his native land?
He seemed to be afraid of nothing, therefore, and so--he fell asleep.
The bank on which he slept adjoined a darkling forest.
A forest of strange dark pines, with red-brown stems, which, owing to the absence of all undergrowth save heather and moss and fern, looked like the pillars of some vast cavern.
But there was bird music in this forest, and Benee had gone to sleep with the flute-like and mellow notes of the soo-soo falling on his ear.
The soo-soo's song had accompanied him to the land of forgetfulness, and was mingling even now with his dreams--happy dreams of long ago.
But list! Was that really the song of the bronze-necked soo-soo?
He was half-awake now, but apparently dreaming still.
He thought he was dreaming at all events, and would not have opened his eyes and so dispelled the dream for all the world.