I have seen many springs and many winters, and have looked down on many sleeping maids, and where are they now?
All dead--all dead," and an old baboon in the rocks with startling suddenness barked out "_all dead_" in answer.
Around her were the blooming lilies and the lustiness of springing life; the heavy air was sweet with the odour of ferns and the mimosa flowers.
The running water splashed and musically fell; the sunlight shot in golden bars athwart the shade, like the memory of happy days in the grey vista of a life; away in the cliffs yonder, the rock-doves were preparing to nest by hundreds, and waking the silence with their cooing and the flutter of their wings.

Even the grim old eagle perched on the pinnacle of the peak was pruning himself, contentedly happy in the knowledge that his mate had laid an egg in that dark corner of the cliff.

All things rejoiced and cried aloud that summer was at hand and that it was time to bloom and love and nest.

Soon it would be winter again, when things died, and next summer other things would live under the sun, and these perchance would be forgotten.

That was what they seemed to say.
And as Jess lay and heard, her youthful blood, drawn by Nature's magnetic force, as the moon draws the tides, rose in her veins like the sap in the budding trees, and stirred her virginal serenity.