"God! my God! it cannot be that Thou lettest her slumber for ever in that cold solitude and I not knowing if her sleep be sweet. She who was like a ray from the sun—she who carried within her orbs the whole glory of the summer skies, the entire mystery of the starry nights. She whose music was the most exquisite rendering of the beauty of life; she whose perfection was the gladness of each awakening day, whose soul and body were like the spotless snow of mountain heights where no human foot has ever passed. O God! O God! how can I leave her grave?" And again he lay there, stretched upon the relentless soil, groaning and shedding tears of blood, whilst the brooding silence of the naked wild lay over all, hostile and unheeding, with Nature's stony indifference to the sorrow and anguish of the human race.
Then at last he tore himself away, feeling how useless were his grief and misery before those eternal laws of creation which for ever are, and for ever shall be.
Now he was fleeing that silent wilderness, bending his head against the driving wind and rain, against the storm of dust and sand that the wild gusts were throwing in his face.
Several times he turned in hopeless yearning towards that lonesome spot where his precious sword stood a lonely guardian of his lost happiness; then, covering his face in an agony too deep for tears, on he rushed as one who tries to escape from a sight he cannot bear.
His faithful friend the hawk flew beside him, occasionally caressing his tear-stained face with the velvet touch of its wings.
For several hours he had thus fought his desperate way, when, on raising his head, he saw a small cloud coming towards him out of the distance, growing in size the nearer it came.
He stood still, vaguely wondering what it might be, when out of the midst of the moving dust a young boy emerged, driven along by the storm that strove to carry him off his feet.
The first thing Eric discerned was a high fur cap, a shaggy coat of skins, into the wide sleeves of which the youth's hands had been deeply thrust, whilst a thick staff was pressed in the hollow of his arm. Behind this advancing figure came the pattering feet of innumerable sheep, raising beneath their steps the thick cloud Eric had first of all descried.
Suddenly, with a glad cry, both youths ran towards each other with joyful recognition, for this was none other than Radu, the shepherd, who was leading his flocks home from the mountains, driven thence by the coming winter.
For a moment both remained speechless, hands clasped, staring into each other's face that were wet and shining from the drizzling rain which had not yet been able to turn into mud the thick coating of dust that lay like powder on the roads. The one who spoke first was Radu, and it was anxiously to ask: