Era gia l’ ora che volge il disio ai naviganti, e intenerisce il cuore lo di ch’ han detto ai dolci amici addio; e che lo nuovo peregrin d’amore punge, se ode squilla di lontano, che paia il giorno pianger che si more; quand’ io incominciai a render vano l’ udire ed a mirare una dell’ alme surta, che l’ ascoltar chiedea con mano. The huge clock of the cathedral boomed again and yet again. His lips still moved softly to the music they emitted. No dray and no great horse had arrived. But his resolve was undaunted; his faith remained inviolate. His frame was growing numb and chill. The stone had grown very cold. The stealthy hues of the night were wrapping themselves about everything. The lamps were now lit in Saint Paul’s Churchyard. A serried bank of dark clouds was looming up out of the west. At his heart was a curious sinking; he seemed to feel a little faint. It still wanted a few minutes to seven by the stolid face that peered at him from across the street, when his devout patience and his simple faith met with their reward. Just as he had foreseen, a heavy dray drawn by a great horse came rattling round the corner of the cathedral. As it neared the warehouse on the steps of which he sat, it began to slow up. Yes, never a doubt about it, it was coming to stand under the creaking piece of iron above his head, the crane dangling from the second storey. This dray stopped precisely as the other one had done at the other warehouse. In a precisely similar fashion the drayman cast the reins loose on the great horse’s neck. Again the drayman stood up and called unintelligible words into the second storey. The door opened as before; the crane began to squeak and grunt; the box hung suspended in mid-air. Swinging and rotating it descended to the drayman’s arms. And then just as before the mighty animal began to prance. With his heart beating as though it would break him in pieces the boy rose from the bottom step of the warehouse. He pressed his hands to his sides. “Courage, Achilles!” he muttered under his breath, “Courage, Achilles!” The great horse still pranced. The man on the dray shouted a horrible oath. With flaming eyes and cheeks of death the boy dragged his faint limbs to the kerb. As he came near the great animal, and he beheld its scarlet nostrils and huge and wicked eyes, he knew it for a monster of fable that could turn him to stone with its glance. A chill stole through his veins. He extended his hands towards the great horse. His eyes were filled with a dreadful rushing darkness. He felt himself swaying with a kind of sick impotence; it was as though the hand of fate had maimed him. “Lay ’old of his head, can’t yer?” the brutal voice of the man on the dray percolated to his ears. “What are yer lookin’ at ’im for?” The great horse lifted its hoofs; the boy reeled back with the face of a corpse. “Mind he don’t eat yer,” said a quiet voice at his side.