snipe's bill, only broad and flattened at the tip. And then Martin
saw that he was wounded, for he had one white hand pressed to his
side and it was stained with blood, and drops of blood were
trickling through his fingers.

He was troubled at the sight, and he gazed at him, and listened to
the words of that solemn song the old men were singing but could not
understand them. Not because he was a child, for no person, however
aged and wise and filled with all learning he might be, could have
understood that strange song about Wonderful Life and Wonderful Death.
Yet there was something in it too which any one who heard it, man or
child, could understand; and he understood it, and it went into his
heart to make it so heavy and sad that he could have put his little
face down on the ground and cried as he had never cried before. But
he did not put his face down and cry, for just then the wounded youth
looked down on him as they carried him past and smiled a very sweet
smile: then Martin felt that he loved him above all the bright and
beautiful beings that had passed before him.

Then, when he was gone from sight; when the solemn sound of the
voices began to grow fainter in the distance like the sound of a
storm when it passes away, his heaviness of heart and sorrow left him,
and he began to listen to the shouts and cries and clanging of noisy
instruments of music swiftly coming nearer and nearer; and then all
round and past him came a vast company of youths and maidens singing
and playing and shouting and dancing as they moved onwards. They
were the most beautiful beings he had ever seen in their shining
dresses, some all in white, others in amber-colour, others in
sky-blue, and some in still other lovely colours. "The Queen! the
Queen!" they were shouting. "Stand up, little boy, and bow to the