He strove with all his sense to find some meaning—at times it seemed as if words and sentences were there, but disconnected, without any purport he could understand.
Breathlessly he listened. His brain throbbed; all his faculties were concentrated in one present effort; this thing that was being told him now—he must hear it, understand it. That was all his task. Perhaps it might solve all the riddles of his questioning—give him a key to life.
And suddenly his sub-conscious mind came to his aid, whispering some lines from a poem by Hjalmar à Bolu. And in relief he murmured the words to himself, lifting his head and breathing freely once more:
“If Thou wilt not hear my words,
Divine, eternal grace,
Then shall the burning cry of my blood
Sunder the heavens about Thee.”
CHAPTER III
The stars in the east grew fainter, till they paled into nothingness, and the day rose slowly over the hills.
The clouds had gone, save for a heavy bank that hung becalmed in the west. Daylight spread abroad, and the blue of the sky grew brighter, until it almost lost itself in a shimmering white.