evening. Far beneath in the valley the water ran lightly on, but there
came no sound from it, none from anywhere; only a general pervasive
murmur quieting to the heart.

Now they heard a note come from the organ--a soft low sound that seemed
to rise out of the good earth and mingle with the vibrant air, the song
of birds, the whisper of trees, and the murmuring water. Then came
another, and another note, then chords, and chords upon these, and
by-and-by, rolling tides of melody, until, as it seemed to the listeners,
the air ached with the incomparable song; and men and women wept, and
children hid their heads in the laps of their mothers, and young men and
maidens dreamed dreams never to be forgotten. For one short hour the
music went on, then twilight came. Presently the sounds grew fainter, and
exquisitely painful, and now a low sob seemed to pass through all the
heart of the organ, and then silence fell, and in the sacred pause,
Hepnon came out among them all, pale and desolate. He looked at them a
minute most sadly, and then lifting up his arms towards the Golden Pipes,
now hidden in the dusk, he cried low and brokenly:

"O my God, give me back my dream!"

Then his crutch seemed to give way beneath him, and he sank upon the
ground, faint and gasping.

They raised him up, and women and men whispered in his ear

"Ah, the beautiful, beautiful music, Hepnon!" But he only said: "O my
God, O my God, give me back my dream!" When he had said it thrice, he
turned his face to where his organ was in the cedar-house, and then his
eyes closed, and he fell asleep: and they could not wake him. But at