Page:Son of the wind.djvu/319

RV 301 large, and doubly large being alone. The state by which kings add to their stature increased his. He gave a slow trepid glance around the clearing, while his wide nostrils drank the wind. Over water and through moss and earth it came purely. There was no scent to startle delicate stretched nerves. He began to advance down the rocky floor at a gait a little faster than a walk. An undulating motion went through the whole body as if the hoofs trod air. The mane waved with it, the tail drifted like a plume. Carron could see the quick ripple of muscles under the satin skin. That was the back that had never felt weight, the neck like a bow that had never bent except at its own will. The white left foot which Carron had seen speeding in terror trod delicately as a girl's on the rocky slope. A star on the breast that had shone at the head of herds now shone solitary. The eyes that had been scarlet with fury were dark and bright and bent on the silver ripple of water as toward the face of a friend. He seemed to condescend to earth with those haughty graces with his own shadow, twisting his head sidewise, trifling with its liberty. Miles around him nothing moved that would not run from him, nothing but eagles, and these floated free, and kept an equal state.

At the lip of the water he paused once more, one