The air grew cooler and finer. It was the air that makes one wish to dance.
Tacita asked herself what it could be in all these faces,—Dylar’s, Elena’s, the two guides’, yes, and in her own mother’s and grandfather’s,—which made them resemble each other in spite of different features and characters. It was a spiritual family resemblance. Ingenuous was not the word. It was not dignity alone. Strong and gentle did not describe it. It was the expression of a certain harmonious poise and elastic firmness of mind indicating that each one had found his proper place, and was content with it; indicating, too, a mutual complaisance, but a supreme dependence on something higher.
Their way led deeper into the mountains. Now and then, in turnings of the path, Tacita lost sight of her companions. She looked backward once for Dylar. When he appeared, he smiled and waved his hand to her encouragingly.
“He smiled!” she whispered to herself, but did not look back again.
The sky was blue and cloudless, and pulsed with its fullness of light. Somewhere, not far away, there was a waterfall. Its infant thunder and lisping splash pervaded the air. The scene grew more grand and terrible. One moment they would be shut into a narrow space from which exit seemed impossible, dark stone grinding close without a sign of pathway; then the solid walls were cleft as in an instant. In the near deeps lurked a delicate shadow; far below was revealed from time to time a velvety darkness.
Tacita’s mind, floating between present contentment, a half-forgotten pain, and a mystical anticipation, confused the scene about her with others far away. Clustered windows, crowded sculptures and balconies, seemed to emboss the cliffs at either hand, or float in misty lines along their surfaces. The sound of the haunting cascade became the dip of oars, or the swash of the lagoon ploughed by a steamboat. She saw their time-stained old Venetian house; and the last scenes she had witnessed there rose before her. A wreath of mist that had risen from some invisible stream and paused among the rocks recalled a narrow bed with a white-haired old man lying on it, peaceful and dead. The hymn sung as he died seemed only that moment to have ceased on the air. Why had it sounded familiar? Perhaps it might have a phrase in common with some song she knew. How did it go? She hummed softly, feeling for the tune, found a bar or two, and sang in a low voice.
To her astonishment, her guide at once took up the strain, and from him Elena and her guide, and then Dylar. They sang:—
“San Salvador, San Salvador,
We live in thee!
’Tis love that holds the threads of fate;