Boys -- Fiction; Dreams -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Governesses -- Fiction; Imagination -- Fiction
"Why hangs the moon so red?" cried a voice that was instantly drowned in
a chorus of unintelligible whispering.
"The black cow must be killed," whispered some one deep within the sky.
"Why drips the rain so cold?" yelled one of the hideous children close
behind him. And a third called with a distant laughter from behind a
star--
"Why sings the wind so shrill?"
"QUIET!" roared an appalling voice below, as if all the rivers of the
world had suddenly turned loose into the sky. "QUIET!"
Instantly a star, that had been hovering for some time on the edge of a
fantastic dance, dropped down close in front of his face. It had a
glaring disc, with mouth and eyes. An icy hand seemed laid on his head,
and the star rushed back into its place in the sky, leaving a trail of
red flame behind it. A little voice seemed to go with it, growing
fainter and fainter in the distance--
"We dance with phantoms and with shadows play."
But, regardless of everything, Jimbo flew onwards and upwards, terrified
and helpless though he was. His thoughts turned without ceasing to the
governess, and he felt sure that she would yet turn up in time to save
him from being caught by the Fright that pursued, or lost among the
fearful spaces that lay beyond the stars.
For a long time, however, his wings had been growing more and more
tired, and the prospect of being destroyed from sheer exhaustion now
presented itself to the boy vaguely as a possible alternative--vaguely
only, because he was no longer able to think, properly speaking, and
things came to him more by way of dull feeling than anything else.
It was all the more with something of a positive shock, therefore, that
he realised the change. For a change had come. He was now sudden by
conscious of an influx of new power--greater than anything he had ever
known before in any of his flights. His wings now suddenly worked as if
by magic. Never had the motion been so easy, and it became every minute
easier and easier. He simply flashed along without apparent effort. An
immense driving power had entered into him. He realised that he could
fly for ever without getting tired. His pace increased tenfold--
increased alarmingly. The possibility of exhaustion vanished utterly.
Jimbo knew now that something was wrong. This new driving power was
something wholly outside himself. His wings were working far too easily.
Then, suddenly, he understood: _His wings were not working at all!_
He was not being driven forward from behind; he was being drawn forward
from in front.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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