"Our absent friends," she said, while by turns a sad and an exalted light played across her mobile features, "have gone the way of the birds that fly south. Yulada has beckoned them, and they have escaped the winter's loneliness and cold, and have hastened where the bright flowers are, and the butterflies and bees. See!"--Ecstatically she pointed to a triangle of swift-moving dots that glided far above through the cloudless blue.--"They are like the wild geese! They flee from the biting gales and the frost, and will not return till the warm days are here again and the leaves come back to the trees. We must all go like them--all of us, all, all!" "And I too--must I go?" I asked, never thinking of taking her words literally. Yasma hesitated. The light faded from her eyes; an expression of sorrow, almost of compassion, flooded her face. "That I cannot say," she returned, sadly. "You must feel the call within you, feel it as the birds do, drawing you on to lands where robins sing and the lilac blooms. No one can tell you how to feel it; it must come from within or not at all, and you yourself must recognize it. But oh, you cannot help recognizing it! It is so strong, so very strong!--and it takes your whole body and soul with it, draws you like a rainbow or a beautiful sunset; and bears you along as the wind bears a dead leaf. You cannot resist it any more than you can resist a terrible hunger--you must submit, or it will hurl you under!" "I do not understand," said I, for despite the ardor of her words, I had only the dimmest idea of the overmastering force she described. "Perhaps," she returned, gently, "you cannot know. You may be like a color-blind man trying to understand color. But oh, I hope not! I hope--ever and ever so much--that you'll hear the call thundering within you. Otherwise, you'll have to stay here by yourself the whole winter, while the snow falls and the wolves howl, and you won't see us again till spring!" Her emotion seemed to be overcoming her. Fiercely she wiped a tear from her cheek; then turned from me, to give way to her misgivings in the seclusion of her father's cabin. But I was not without my own misgivings. Her words had revived haunting premonitions; it was as if some sinister shadow hovered over me, all the more dread because formless. What unhallowed people were these Ibandru, to go slinking away like specters in the night? Were they a tribe of outlaws or brigands, hiding from justice in these impenetrable fastnesses? Or were they the sole survivors of some ancient race, endowed with qualities not given to ordinary humans? With new interest I recalled the stories told me by the Afghan guides before my fateful adventure: the reports that the Ibandru were a race of devils, winged like birds and with the power of making themselves invisible. Absurd as this tale appeared, might there not be the ghost of an excuse for it?