poet called the wine-dark sea. It really has a sort of purple shade;
look at it."

Paynter looked; he saw the wine-dark sea and the fantastic trees
that fringed it, but he did not see the poet; the cloister was
already empty of its restless monk.

"Gone somewhere else," he said, with futility far from characteristic.
"He'll be back here presently. This is an interesting vigil,
but a vigil loses some of its intensity when you can't
keep awake. Ah! Here's Treherne; so we're all mustered,
as the politician said when Mr. Colman came late for dinner.
No, the doctor's off again. How restless we all are!"
The poet had drawn near, his feet were falling soft on the grass,
and was gazing at them with a singular attentiveness.

"It will soon be over," he said.

"What?" snapped Ashe very abruptly.

"The night, of course," replied Treherne in a motionless manner.
"The darkest hour has passed."

"Didn't some other minor poet remark," inquired Paynter flippantly,
"that the darkest hour before the dawn--? My God, what was that?
It was like a scream."

"It was a scream," replied the poet. "The scream of a peacock."

Ashe stood up, his strong pale face against his red hair,