Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/316

 I would fain have carried about within me for the coming time whatever I could of all the vanishing life about me: I would have stored up all that out there, in the forests, I cared so much for: inasmuch as I knew that another year would not find me here, among these trees and hills: hence, I daily walked or rode more than usual, in the neighbourhood of Smyrna.

But what also particularly led me to be out and about so, was a secret longing to see again a certain stranger, whom, during a short time, I had met every day, under the trees, outside the gates of Smyrna.

"Like a youthful Titan stalking among dwarfs, so had this magnificent young apparition seemed to me; even the crowd covertly regarding with eager eyes his beauty, his height, his vigour, the warm, sunburned head, that were a refreshment to see: and it had been a thrilling moment for myself when the stranger's eye (for which even the free air seemed too contracted an aether) cast about with a careless pride, had met my own glance, when we had blushed at so noticing one another and had turned away.

"One evening I had been riding deep into the forest, and was coming homeward late. I had dismounted, and was leading my horse down a steep, lonely path, over tree-roots and stones. Then, as I picked my way along through the bushes that opened before me, suddenly a couple of common highwaymen attacked me. During the first instants, I had some trouble to ward off the two swords drawn upon me; but the men were already wearied out with earlier activities, and I was soon out of any danger from them. I mounted, and rode on.

At the foot of the mountain, between the woods and the rocks, stretched a little meadow. It was a bright night. The moon had just risen above the trees. At some distance I saw a horse stretched out dead on the greensward; some men were lying motionless around the horse.

"Who are you?" I cried out.

"You are Hyperion!" called to me in return, a fine round voice, as if its owner were pleasantly surprised. He continued "—You know me, too; for I meet you each day under the trees, at the town-gate",

My horse and I flew to him like an arrow. I knew him, and I leaped from my saddle.