Page:Frank Owen - The Wind That Tramps the World (1929).djvu/100

 again. Then she pushed him slowly away and continued her singing. But now she sang directly to him, a song that roses sing when their lovers return. It was magic, it was enchantment. Perhaps Woo Ling-foh was right. The Blue City was a spirit world, but if so, what mattered?

Entranced he lingered in the garden until the rosetipped shafts of morning crept into the skies. Slowly the blue faded into roseate magnificence. The magnolia trees sighed softly. They swayed in the breeze as though they were awakening. A few of the fragile blossoms fell upon him. The lovely flowerlike maiden rose to her feet. She took his hand and faced toward the East. An ecstatic expression was upon her face and her soft bosom rose and fell as though she were greatly enthused. Forgotten by Hwei-Ti was the panic that had seized Woo Ling-foh on that other morning when they had fled together from the gorgeous horrors about which Woo Ling-foh talked in whispers. Gone was fear, fear of death, fear of life. Only the rose tints of lovely dawn remained and this girl of songs and dreams. Slowly the blue faded and the rose, pink, orange glow intensified. From the distance there came a great moaning, a moaning as of the sea booming upon a white coral beach. It sounded like distant thunder. It was the thunder of dawn, the crashing beauty of the sun. Slowly, majestically it loomed into view. Its brilliance was blinding, dazzling. It burned the eyes of Hwei-Ti yet he could not turn them away.