But he did not remain alone long. The flapping of wings resounded on high, and from the midst of the serene blue sky, descended that same wondrous dove which had visited his ship on Africa's coasts, and now lighted fearlessly on the top of his little mast.
She, too, had fled from the storm. Her gold glittering plumage was all rumpled and soiled, and she smoothed and composed it with her scarlet bill; then fluttering on to Bar Noemi's arm, as if he were an old acquaintance, she flew down from thence upon Byssenia's snowy shoulder with a loud cooing, and when they offered her of the wheaten cakes, she pecked at it but did not eat, and then flew away again with the gentle coo of the wild dove.
"I'll follow thee, thou heavenly messenger!" cried Bar Noemi, trustfully; and unfurling his little sail to the wind, he steered the raft in the direction taken by the dove.
The heavenly guide never disappeared from view. When the raft was becalmed, she flew down upon it and rested. At night she always roosted on the summit of the mast, and in the early morning departed again, flying constantly in one and the same direction.
Three days and three nights the dove and the mariner travelled together. On the morning of the fourth day, the dove flew joyously on to Byssenia's knee, ate heartily of the wheaten cakes, and thereupon flew so rapidly away that the eye could scarcely follow her: at last she quite disappeared from the horizon.
In the fourth night the ship sailed along alone, and the beloved, the loving wife, laid her head on her husband's bosom, as if she were resting on her bridal bed at home, so calmly did she sleep amidst the waste of waters.
But Bar Noemi could not sleep. There is a feeling in the sailor's breast, the vibration of some hidden chord, one of those myriad secret forebodings which the learned may perhaps deny, but can never explain, which expresses itself in a feverish unrest whenever he is approaching the green headland of his dreams, which he cannot yet see, and yet could point out with his finger and say, "There it is!" when all around him is nought but commingling sea and sky.—"There it is! There it must be!"
The morning twilight suffuses heaven and ocean with gold and purple, and, lo! where the gilded sky touches the water, a lofty rock stands out against the horizon, its bepurpled summits shimmering through the azure morning mists.
"The Lord He is God alone!" exclaims Bar Noemi, and raised thankful hands to heaven, while Byssenia sank down before the Ark of the Covenant, and covered its silver-studded corners and angles with her kisses.
A new world? No! It is an old world already hastening to the end of its history, just as the history of the known world has begun to take notice of it. Ye who have fixed the duration of the Ages, how know ye how many previous millenniums with a whole world of men, beasts, and plants have already vanished hopelessly from your ken? Those skeletons which are found in the beds of rivers, at the bottom of deep clefts; those remains of unknown animals never seen by European eyes; those relics of a primeval vegetation which amaze us in the coal layers, and the chalk strata,—speak of an older, perhaps of a better, in any case of a mightier, world than ours. And do not those gigantic ruined palaces, with their wondrous architecture which adventurous travellers have discovered in the land of the Incas, do not they point to a vanished people, the masters of power and glory who, once upon a time, filled half a world with their struggles and their joys; ruled the land and waxed great, seeming to the inhabitants of that trans-oceanic continent a race of very demigods, till their sins made them ripe for death, and the luxuriant vegetation of a savage Nature disputed the possession of the soil with the children of men? The calculations of the wise Plato about the "Fortunate Islands" may indeed have only been a poetic dream, perhaps the mere striving of an inspired philosophical soul to realize its own ideals; but so much is certain: the relics which have survived the ravages of centuries, relics which no sea can wear down, which no forest can overgrow, no tempest can wash away, testify to the fact that in the far distant ages before us, beings have existed who aimed at perfection, and only perished when their pride reached its summit, and they fancied in their insane presumption that there was no longer any God above them.