A mountain goat which met him, turned from him, and fled bleating, with
his mate, to a steep peak of rock, but Pentaur said to the frightened
beasts:

"I shall do nothing to you--not I"

He paused on a little plateau at the foot of the jagged granite peak of
the mountain. Here again he heard the murmur of a spring, the grass
under his feet was damp, and covered with a film of ice, in which were
mirrored the stars, now gradually fading. He looked up at the lights in
the sky, those never-tarrying, and yet motionless wanderers-away, to the
mountain heights around him-down, into the gorge below--and far off, into
the distance.

The dusk slowly grew into light, the mysterious forms of the mountain-
chain took shape and stood up with their shining points, the light clouds
were swept away like smoke. Thin vapors rose from the oasis and the
other valleys at his feet, at first in heavy masses, then they parted and
were wafted, as if in sport, above and beyond him to the sky. Far below
him soared a large eagle, the only living creature far or near.

A solemn and utter silence surrounded him, and when the eagle swooped
down and vanished from his sight, and the mist rolled lower into the
valley, he felt that here, alone, he was high above all other living
beings, and standing nearer to the Divinity.

He drew his breath fully and deeply, he felt as he had felt in the first
hours after his initiation, when for the first time he was admitted to
the holy of holies--and yet quite different.