Then Nu Zhinga climbed on to the summit of the hill and watched the west pass from brilliant colours into dun, and the darkness come with the stars. In the light of a thin moon the far hills whitened. The big stars glowed kindly like the camp fires of a friendly people. The night wind talked to itself in the gulches; and attentive to these, Nu Zhinga forgot the reason of his coming, and lulled by the many pleasant sounds, fell asleep and was awakened by the pale damp Dawn. Then he ran down the hill, and as he passed through the village, the old women, some busy about the steaming kettles, others bent beneath the loads of fuel, shook their heads and said: “Gunthai’s boy has had no vision; not so do they return who dream great dreams.” In the doorway of her lodge Gunthai stood awaiting the approach of her son. Her body that was wont to be bent like a bow upon which a heavy hand is laid in anger, was erect and quivering as is the bow when the arrow has sped like a purpose. Upon her leathery, wrinkled face dwelt the glimmer of an inner illumination. Only the flesh was old, the light was young; for Hope is a youth. As the lad approached, the tenseness of expectation held the old woman’s tongue and her question came from her eyes. “What has Nu Zhinga dreamed?” “I saw the stars that were like the eyes of a friend,” said the boy, “and I heard the wind as it sang to itself in the gulches. I slept and woke and the Sun was laughing on the hills!” Many seasons sit lightly upon a form when Hope sits with them; but Despair is heavy, and again the weight of many years bent the shoulders of the mother. When the sun leaves a cloud of glory, it leaves a mass of murk; thus passed the light from the wrinkled face of Gunthai. There was a sigh in her voice as she spoke; a sigh like that of a wind that is heavy with rain: “There should have come a dream loud with the noises of battle and shrill with the flight of arrows! Thus did your father dream.” So Nu Zhinga went a second and a third and a fourth time to the hill of dreams, and the last answer that his mother heard was like the first. And on the fifth day the heart of the old mother was sore with sorrow, and all that night she did not sleep, but wept and moaned: “How shall Gunthai be comforted when her eyes are dim and her fingers stiff? Her son shall not be mighty in the hunt and battle, for he has had no dream.” The lad, awakened in the night by the moaning of his mother, knew in an indefinite way that he was the cause of so much grief; and in his breast grew a great pang of soul hunger that would not pass away. Even with the giant joy of the sunrise it did not pass away.