“The Old Gods slumbered; but Echo, watching by rock and pool, ever answered our calling through the years. Awake! Awake! O Gods! Hear again the pipes of Pan!”
He blew a melancholy air upon his instrument, prancing grotesquely the while.
“Syrinx, reed-maiden, men have not forgotten thee! Again they hear the wailings of thy soul in the pipes of Pan.”
He danced again, looking up at the moon.
“Diana! Long hast thou watched us from thy throne in the skies, but now the nights of thy hunting are come once more. Prepare the bow, gird on thy quiver and come with us again as in the days of old. Dost thou remember the white goat? Join us, O Huntress!”
Again he made music with his pipes.
“Syrinx, Syrinx! I come to seek thee in the reeds by the river. Awake! The world begins anew.”
And crying “Syrinx, O Syrinx!” he ran from us and disappeared into Mortimer Street.
Glendyne turned into Castle Street East. I could not see any reason for these continual turnings and windings in our wanderings, but I suppose that he had some definite itinerary in his mind, some route which would give him the best opportunity of exhibiting to me the varied aspects of London at this time. Here again the skeletons lay scattered, though there appeared to be no aggregations of them in any particular localities. Behind us, the Tottenham Court Road district seemed ablaze; and flames leaped above the house-roofs to the east.
Suddenly, after we had passed Berners Street, I heard a confused sound of shouting, yells, running feet and the notes of a horn. Glendyne started violently and dragged me rapidly into the shelter of a house-door near the corner of Wells Street.