with a cool and professional air. "It will go down soon, and
then death will follow."

"Be calm, Rayel," he continued, almost sternly, as his son
began weeping. "Be calm, I say! That music! do you hear it,
child? Do you see what is passing now? Tell it. Let me hear
you."

"I cannot hear it," said Rayel, looking earnestly into his
father's face.

"Hallucination!" he whispered, groping about until his hand
rested on the head of his son, who was kneeling beside him.
"I seem to see millions of forms around me. I seem to hear
them, but I cannot see you--nor hear you."

As if exhausted by the effort, his head fell back upon
Rayel's shoulder, and he lay for a time, his eyes closed,
struggling for breath. The dying man's faculties would no
longer obey the whip of his mighty will. Indeed, they had
done him their final service, for in a few moments he was
dead. Tenderly and manfully, uttering no sound of grief,
Rayel lifted the lifeless body of his father, and bore it
into the house.



CHAPTER VII