It saw
the eternal mountains rise with walls to the white clouds; but its work was
done.
The old hunter folded his tired hands and lay down by the precipice where
he had worked away his life. It was the sleeping time at last. Below him
over the valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke; and through
the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fields of their
childhood. From afar seemed borne to him the cry of his own wild birds,
and he heard the noise of people singing as they danced. And he thought he
heard among them the voices of his old comrades; and he saw far off the
sunlight shine on his early home. And great tears gathered in the hunter's
eyes.
"Ah! they who die there do not die alone," he cried.
Then the mists rolled together again; and he turned his eyes away.
"I have sought," he said, "for long years I have laboured; but I have not
found her. I have not rested, I have not repined, and I have not seen her;
now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out other men will stand,
young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by the
stairs that I have built they will mount. They will never know the name of
the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when the stones
roll they will curse me. But they will mount, and on my work; they will
climb, and by my stair! They will find her, and through me! And no man
liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself."
The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids.
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