The watcher smiled, and said, ‘If it is not he, yet is it a brother; if it is not he now, yet his time will come. And in every one who passes, I hope to see his face; and the more that come, the more certain it is that he will come. And the time seems not long for the love I bear him. And it is for this that the Lord has so considered me. Listen! for some one comes.’ And there came to these watchers the strangest sight; for there flew past them while they gazed a man, who seemed to be carried upon the sweep of the wind. In the midst of the darkness they could see the faint white in his face, with eyes of flame and lips set firm--whirled forward upon the wind, which would have dashed him against the rocks; but as he whirled past he caught with his hand the needles of the opposite peaks, and was swung high over a great chasm, and landed upon a higher height, high over their heads. And for a moment they could hear, like a pulsation through the depths, the hard panting of his breath. Then, with scarcely a moment for rest, they heard the sound of his progress onward, as if he did battle with the mountain, and his own swiftness carried him like another wind. It had taken less than a moment to sweep him past, quicker than the flight of a bird, as sudden as a lightning flash. The little pilgrim followed him with her eager ears, wondering if he would leap thus into the country of light and take heaven by storm; or whether he would fall upon the heavenly hills, and lie prostrate in weariness and exhaustion, like him to whom she had ministered. She followed him with her ears, for the sound of his progress was with crashing of rocks and a swift movement in the air: but she was called back by the pressure of the hand of the watcher who did not, like the little pilgrim, follow him who thus rushed through space as far as there was sound or sight of him, but had turned again to the lower side, and was gazing once more, and listening for the little noises in the gulf below. The little pilgrim remembered her friend’s hope, and said softly, ‘It was not he?’ And the watcher clasped her hand again, and answered, ‘It was a dear brother. I have sounded the silver bells for him: and soon we shall hear them answering from the heights above. And another time it will be he.’ And they kissed each other because they understood each the other in her heart.