the night, through the endless aisles of forest, reaching the halls of the great race whose sovereignty had returned, and whose name was once more in the land.
Where he stood, they saw him; his eyes rested on them in the soft shadows of the night, and his hands were stretched to them in silence—a silence that spoke beyond words, and fell in turn on them, upon the vast throngs that looked upward to his face, unseen so long, upon the strong men who wept as children, upon the aged who were content to lay them down and die because the one they loved had come to them from his exile;—and that hour repaid him for his agony.
He had dealt with his enemy, and reached a mercy that the world would never honour, laid down a vengeance that the world would never know. No homage would ever greet his sacrifice; when death should come to him he must fall beneath its stroke with that victory untold, that foe unarraigned. He would see his traitor triumph, and lift up no voice to accuse him; he would behold men worship their false god, and hold back his hand from the righteous blow. But through bitterness he had cleaved to truth, through desolation he had followed justice, and while men forsook him he had remained constant to them, constant to himself. He had followed the words of the Greek poet, he had been "faithful to the dreams of his youth;" and peace was with him at the end.
In the hush of the night, with the sanctity of a
