Page:Afterglow; pastels of Greek Egypt, 69 B.C. (IA afterglowpastels00buck).pdf/98

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The Shepherdess

than any girl he had ever seen. He forgot his companions and, as these gathered about him, laughing and questioning, they were gross. Lysidice had disappeared and he would tell them nothing.

"Pan frightened him," they said. "See, there he stands, watching us from those trees. He is a shepherds' god and probably dislikes us."

They also heard the distant pipes which shrilled now, darting gleaming, mad notes across the fields; and, like Lysidice, they also danced among the trees, waving their arms and turning their faces upward toward the green leaves murmuring overhead. But they did not dance alone, for the notes of the pipes were notes of ecstacy and of union and of life.

Archias wished to dance also, but did not. He was thinking of the girl they had frightened away and, more than anything else, he wanted to see her again. He heard