Page:Sologub Sweet Scented Name.djvu/212

 Dragon. Afternoon turned to evening and the Dragon effaced himself in shadow, but there came no evening coolness. The wind, as if enchanted by silence and fear, lay asleep. The sultry Dragon sinking into darkness looked in the eyes of the Centurion and seemed to smile a calm and dreadful smile. The twilight was calm and sultry and shadowy; the beat of the horses' feet was even and rhythmical and drowsy, and the Centurion felt sad at heart.

So measured was the beat of the sounding hoofs, and so grey, so hopeless and unlifting was the column of dust in which they moved, that it seemed as if they were on an endless journey. The greyer became the night the more lonely and remote they seemed, and the empty clangour of their beating hoofs resounded in the far distance of the wilderness. A sense of dread came over him, a dread to which as to his tiredness he saw no term.

He seemed to hear the sounds of wailing somewhere afar.

The earth trembled and murmured under the beat of the horses' hoofs.

Some one was running towards them.

A dim voice, a voice like that of the boy began to cry.