Rachel opened her eyes. There in front of her sat Nya, crooning her low song, and there, on either side crouched the mutes tapping upon their little drums and gazing into their bowls of water, while against her leaned Noie, who stirred like one awaking from sleep. Ages and ages ago when she started on that dread journey, the dwarf to her left was stretching out her hand to steady the bowl at her feet, and now it had but just reached the bowl. A great moth had singed its wings in the lamp, and was fluttering to the ground—it was still in mid-air. Noie was placing her arm about her neck, and it had but begun to fall upon her shoulder! CHAPTER XXII. IN THE SANCTUARY Nya ceased her singing, and the dwarf women their beating on the drums. “Hast thou been a journey, Maiden?” she asked, looking at Rachel curiously. “Aye, Mother,” she answered in a faint voice, “and a journey far and strange.” “And thou, Noie, my niece?” “Aye, Mother,” she answered, shivering as though with cold or fear, “but I went not with my Sister here, I went alone—for years and years.” “A far journey thou sayest, Inkosazana, and one that was for years and years, thou sayest, Noie, yet the eyes of both of you have been shut for so long only as it takes a burnt moth to fall from the lamp flame to the ground. I think that you slept and dreamed a moment, that is all.” “Mayhap, Mother,” replied Rachel, “but if so mine was a most wondrous dream, such as has never visited me before, and as I pray, never may again. For I was borne beyond the stars into the glorious cities of the dead, and I saw all the dead, and those that I had known in life were brought to me by Shapes and Powers whereof I could only see the eyes.” “And didst thou find him whom thou soughtest most of all?” “Nay,” she answered, “him alone I did not find. I sought him, I prayed the Guardians of the dead to show him to me, and they called up all the dead, and I scanned them every one, and they summoned him by his name, but he was not of their number, and he came not. Only they spoke in my heart, bidding me to look for him in some other world.” “Ah!” exclaimed Nya starting a little, “they said that to thee, did they? Well, worlds are many, and such a search would be long.” Then as though to turn the subject, she added, “And what sawest thou, Noie?”