I thought I had been sleeping for a long time and had woken before the
dawn: the earth was misty, although the moon was shining; and I was no
longer in the temple, but back once more at the edge of the plain. "They
must have fetched me back while I slept," I thought to myself. But when
I looked round I saw no trace of the officers, nor of the Cossacks, nor
of the small house and the garden, and, stranger still, the millet had
been reaped and the plain was covered with low stubble, and on it
were pitched some curiously-shaped tents, which I saw were guarded by
soldiers. But these soldiers were Chinamen, and yet unlike any Chinamen
I had ever seen; for some of them carried halberds, the double-armed
halberds of the period of Charles I., and others, halberds with a
crescent on one side, like those which were used in the days of Henry
VII. And I then noticed that a whole multitude of soldiers were lying
asleep on the ground, armed with two-edged swords and bows and arrows.
And their clothes seemed unfamiliar and brighter than the clothes which
Chinese soldiers wear nowadays.

As I wondered what all this meant, a note of music came stealing through
the night, and at first it seemed to be the same tune as I heard in the
temple before I dropped off to sleep; but presently I was sure that this
was a mistake, for the sound was richer and more mellow, and like that
of a bell, only of an enchanted bell, such as that which is fabled to
sound beneath the ocean. And the music seemed to rise and fall, to grow
clear and full, and just as it was floating nearer and nearer, it died
away in a sigh: but as it did so the distant hills seemed to catch it
and to send it back in the company of a thousand echoes, till the whole
night was filled and trembling with an unearthly chorus. The sleeping
soldiers gradually stirred and sat listening spellbound to the music.
And in the eyes of the sentries, who were standing as motionless as
bronze statues in front of the tents, I could see the tears glistening.