Then the days grew shorter, the sky grayer, the wind colder; there was large hunting and small success. In his dreams he began to see sunshine, broad, burning sunshine, day after day; skies of limitless blue; dark, deep, yet full of fire; stretches of bright water, shallow, warm—fringed with tall reeds and rushes, teeming with fat frogs.
They were in her dreams, too, but he did not know that.
He stretched his wings and flew farther every day; but his wings were not satisfied. In his dreams came a sense of vast heights and boundless spaces of the earth streaming away beneath him; black water and white land; gray water and brown land, blue water and green land, all flowing backward from day to day, while the cold lessened and the warmth grew.
He felt the empty sparkling nights, stars far above, quivering, burning; stars far below quivering more in the dark water; and felt his great wings wide, strong, all-sufficient, carrying him on and on!
This was in her dreams, too, but he did not know that.
“It is time to go,” he cried one day. “They are coming! It is upon us! Yes,—I must go! Goodbye, my wife! Goodbye, my children!” For the passion of wings was upon him.
She, too, was stirred to the heart. “Yes, it is time to go!” she cried. “I am ready! Come!”
He was shocked, grieved, astonished. “Why, my dear!” he said, “How preposterous! You cannot go on the great flight! Your wings are for brooding tender little ones! Your body is for the wonder of the gleaming treasure.—Not for days’ and nights’ ceaseless soaring! You cannot go!”
She did not heed him. She spread her wide wings and swept and circled far and high above,—as, in truth, she had been doing for many days, though he had not noticed it.
She dropped to the ridge pole beside him, where he was still muttering objections. “Is it not glorious?” she cried. “Come! They are nearly ready!”