But she was already beyond reach of my appeals. "I see the birds! I see the wild birds!" she repeated, rising to a crescendo of exaltation. "I will fly with them, fly south, fly south! I will go where the sun always shines! I will go where all things are green and fair! Oh, I am going, I am going!" Once more she turned passionately toward me; but her voice faltered, and a note of something wistful and gentle softened her fervid outburst. "Good-bye, my beloved--good-bye! I am going! It is the will--the will--of Yulada!" At mention of that dread name, all power seemingly left her. Her thin form crumpled up and slumped down upon the disordered straw; for a moment a muffled gurgling filled her throat, and then she lay motionless where the firelight cast fantastic shadows. With the fury of one scarcely conscious what he does, I bent down and lifted the silent figure in my arms. But she hung limp and unresponsive, and the open lips gave forth no sound, and the pulse no longer fluttered. Then when the first terror of realization came upon me and my shoulders shook and heaved and the tears flooded down, I thought that I heard a strange sound without. Even in the unutterable depths of my agony, a rhythm as of whirring wings seemed to reach me; and some will not my own took hold of me, and brought me to the cabin door, and made me fling it wide before me. Not a dozen yards above, a great bird was poised in air; and at my approach it retreated into the twilight, speeding with swift-flapping wings upward and southward; and against the last red flare of day it was dimly visible for a moment, and then became a shadow, and then less than a shadow against the spectral peaks. And the western radiance paled and faded; and the stars came out one by one in the vague solitudes, and a faint glow to the east presaged the moon-rise; and I returned to the waning firelight, and to my grief that already was merged in a flaming remembrance. * * * * *