Lilith

messages.
We came at length to a forest whose trees were greater, grander, and more beautiful than any we had yet seen.
Their live pillars upheaved a thick embowed roof, betwixt whose leaves and blossoms hardly a sunbeam
filtered. Into the rafters of this aerial vault the children climbed, and through them went scrambling and
leaping in a land of bloom, shouting to the unseen elephants below, and hearing them trumpet their replies.
The conversations between them Lona understood while I but guessed at them blunderingly. The Little Ones
chased the squirrels, and the squirrels, frolicking, drew them on−−always at length allowing themselves to be
caught and petted. Often would some bird, lovely in plumage and form, light upon one of them, sing a song
of what was coming, and fly away. Not one monkey of any sort could they see.
CHAPTER XLVI. THE CITY
Lona and I, who walked below, heard at last a great shout overhead, and in a moment or two the Little Ones
began to come dropping down from the foliage with the news that, climbing to the top of a tree yet taller than
the rest, they had descried, far across the plain, a curious something on the side of a solitary
mountain−−which mountain, they said, rose and rose, until the sky gathered thick to keep it down, and
knocked its top off.
"It may be a city," they said, "but it is not at all like Bulika."
I went up to look, and saw a great city, ascending into blue clouds, where I could not distinguish mountain
from sky and cloud, or rocks from dwellings. Cloud and mountain and sky, palace and precipice mingled in a
seeming chaos of broken shadow and shine.
I descended, the Little Ones came with me, and together we sped on faster. They grew yet merrier as they
went, leading the way, and never looking behind them. The river grew lovelier and lovelier, until I knew that
never before had I seen real water. Nothing in this world is more than LIKE it.
By and by we could from the plain see the city among the blue clouds. But other clouds were gathering
around a lofty tower−−or was it a rock?−−that stood above the city, nearer the crest of the mountain. Gray,
and dark gray, and purple, they writhed in confused, contrariant motions, and tossed up a vaporous foam,
while spots in them gyrated like whirlpools. At length issued a dazzling flash, which seemed for a moment to
play about the Little Ones in front of us. Blinding darkness followed, but through it we heard their voices,
low with delight.
"Did you see?"
"I saw."
"What did you see?"
"The beautifullest man."
"I heard him speak!"
"I didn't: what did he say?"
Here answered the smallest and most childish of the voices−−that of Luva:−−
"He said, `'Ou's all mine's, 'ickle ones: come along!'"
Lilith
Lilith 158