第50章

"COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS!"

Nothing further happened to me till I reached Yellowsands, except an exciting ride on the mail-coach, which connected it with the nearest railway-station some twenty miles away.For the last three or four miles the road ran along the extreme precipitous verge of cliffs that sloped, a giant's wall of grassy mountain, right away down to a dreamy amethystine floor of sea, miles and miles, as it seemed, below.To ride on that coach, as it gallantly staggered betwixt earth and heaven, was to know all the ecstasy of flying, with an added touch of danger, which birds and angels, and others accustomed to fly, can never experience.And then at length the glorious mad descent down three plunging cataracts of rocky road, the exciting rattling of the harness, the grinding of the strong brakes, the driver's soothing calls to his horses, and the long burnished horn trailing wild music behind us, like invisible banners of aerial brass,--oh, it stirred the dullest blood amongst us thus as it were to tear down the sky towards the white roofs of Yellowsands, glittering here and there among the clouds of trees which filled the little valley almost to the sea's edge, while floating up to us came soft strains of music, silken and caressing, as though the sea itself sang us a welcome.Had you heard it from aboard the Argo, you would have declared it to be the sirens singing, and it would have been found necessary to lash you to the mast.But there were no masts to lash you to in Yellowsands--and of the sirens it is not yet time to speak.