Turning to his father, he uttered some strange monosyllable in a deep voice.

Then he took my hand and walked back and forth across the room with me, smiling in great delight.
I was fascinated by one of the pictures which showed a great gleaming eye with a suggestion of lightning in its fiery depths, as if taken at the keenest flash of fury.

To intensify its fierceness a human hand was raised in front of it so as to throw a dark shadow across the canvas.
"It is the lion's eye," said my uncle, who was standing near me.
There were other paintings--many of them equally strange and wonderful--hanging on the walls, some of which contained material he could not have derived from direct observation.

It was easy to discern in his work the fragments of nature that came within the limited command of his own eyes--the falling snow, the changing phases of the sky and of vegetation--for they were presented with a stronger and more vivid touch.

Until the fading twilight blended all color into gloom I passed from one canvas to another along the wall in silence, oblivious of all save the presence of Rayel, who followed close at my elbow, evidently enjoying my admiration of his work.