light of their bivouac fires stained such an infinitesimal fragment of the vaulted night above that the day's violence used to shrink into an insignificance which effected in its way their purification. However rude and savage their companions, it was impossible to eliminate the gift they offered of human companionship in these desolate tracts of mountainous country. In the stormy darkness they would listen with a kind of affection to the breathing of the ponies and to the broken murmurs of conversation between rider and rider all round them. There was always something of sympathy in the touch of a sheep-skin coat, something of a wistful consolation in the flicker of a lighted cigarette, something of tenderness in the offer of a water-flask; and when the moon shone frostily overhead so that all the company was visible, there was never far away an emotion of wonder at their very selves being a part of this hurrying silver cavalcade, a wonder that easily was merged in gratitude for so much beauty after so much horror. For Sylvia there was above everything the joy of seeing Michael growing stronger from day to day, and upon this joy her mind fed itself and forgot that she had ever imagined a greater joy beyond. Her contentment may have been of a piece with her indifference to the sacked villages and murdered Serbs; but she put away from her the certainty of the journey's end and surrendered to the entrancing motion through these winds of Thrace rattling and battling southward to the sea.