"Then the mists rolled together again; and he turned his eyes away.

"'I have sought,' he said, 'for long years I have laboured; but I have not
found her. I have not rested, I have not repined, and I have not seen her;
now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out other men will stand,
young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by the
stairs that I have built they will mount. They will never know the name of
the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when the stones
roll they will curse me. But they will mount, and on my work; they will
climb, and by my stair! They will find her, and through me! And no man
liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself.'

"The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids. If Truth had
appeared above him in the clouds now he could not have seen her, the mist
of death was in his eyes.

"'My soul hears their glad step coming,' he said; 'and they shall mount!
they shall mount!' He raised his shrivelled hand to his eyes.

"Then slowly from the white sky above, through the still air, came
something falling, falling, falling. Softly it fluttered down, and dropped
on to the breast of the dying man. He felt it with his hands. It was a
feather. He died holding it."

The boy had shaded his eyes with his hand. On the wood of the carving
great drops fell. The stranger must have laughed at him, or remained
silent. He did so.

"How did you know it?" the boy whispered at last. "It is not written
there--not on that wood. How did you know it?"