A soft voice replied: “Don’t be alarmed, sir, I am the Plumage Bill.”
Its shape had grown no clearer; but in sheer amazement I went on speaking as though it were a being.
“What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you in there?” And I pointed to Big Ben.
The voice answered again: “They have no time for me, sir. I am resting a moment before I pass.”
“But,” I said, “you ‘pass’ in there, not out here!”
I could have sworn I heard it laugh, much as a dying child will laugh if you show it a jumping toy: “Oh! no, sir! It is here we pass into nothing and the summer night.”
And, as it spoke, around me came the most extraordinary beating and vibration in the air, a kind of white-gray wonder of invisible wings wheeling and hovering. The whole of dark space seemed full of millions of these invisible wings, so that I stood utterly bewildered. Then from out of that noiseless swirl rose suddenly hundreds of thousands of tiny voices as of birds too young to fly, calling, crying, calling. And, flinging up my hands, I pressed them against the drums of my ears till I thought I should break them in; but still I heard the hundreds of thousands of shrill little voices crying, and crying. “Hush!” I called out: “For heaven’s sake, hush!” But on they went, feeble and shrill amid that invisible swirl of winged mothers trying to reach and feed them; then, just when I thought I could bear it no longer, the mist on the water curled over and broke like a wave, something sighed out “Farewell!” and the thin gray shape was no longer there.
All was still once more. The Bridge stretched empty. Big Ben glowed in the sky. I drew a long breath and turned to look down at the water. There, on the parapet, was that thin gray shape again!
“Not gone?” I cried.
A voice answered: “Sir, I have only just come. I am the Bill of the Worn-out Horses.”