THE WATCH-TOWER.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1545, 14 September 1912, Page 9

THE WATCH-TOWER.

I sat one April evening in Provence on a small hill above an ancient town that Goth and Vandal as yet have forborne to "bring up to date." On tho hill was an old worn castle with a watch-tower, and a well wita narrow steps and water in it still. -. The watcli-tower, staring south with neglected windows, faced a broad valley full of the pleasant twilight and the hum of evening things: it saw the fires of wanderers blink from the hills/ beyond them the long forest black ; with pines, one star appearing, and darkness settling slowly down on Var. ,- Hitting there listening to the green frogs croaking, hearing far voices clearly but all transmuted by evening, watching the. windows in the little town glimmering one by one, and seeing the gloaming dwindle solemnly into night, a great many things fell from mind that seem lmporiant by day, and evening in their place planted strange fancies. . . Little winds had arisen and were whispering to and fro, it-grew cold, and 1. was about to descend the hill when I heard a voice behind mo saying, ''Beware, beware." . . * So much the voice appeared a part ot tho evening that I did not turn round at first; it was liko voices that one hears in sleep and thinks to be ol one's dream. And the word was monotonously repeated, in French. AVhen I turned round I saw an old man with a horn. Ho had a white beard marvellously long, and still went on saying slowly "Beware, beware." He had clearly just come from tho tower by which ho stood, though I had heard no footfall. Had a man come stealthily upon me at such an hour and in so lonesome a place I had certainly felt surprised; but 1 saw almost at once that he was a spirit, and he seemed with his uncouth horn and his long white beard and that noiseless step of his to be so native to that time and place that I spoke to him as*one. does to some fellow traveller who asks you if you mind having tho window up. I asked him what there was to beware of. "Of what should a town beware, ht said, "but the Saracens?" "Saracens?" I Ettid. "Yes, Saracens, Saracens," he answered and brandished his horn. "And who are your" I said. ! "I, I am the spirit of tho tower," he said. When' I asked him how he came by so human an aspect and was soj , unlike the material tower beside him he told me that the lives of all the watchers who had ever held the horn in the tower there had gone to make the spirit of the tower. "It takes ..a hundred lives," he said. "None hold tho horn of late and men neglect tho tower. When the. walls afo in ill repair the Saracens come: it was ever so." "The Saracens don't come nowadays," 1 said. But he was gazing past me watching, and did not seam to heed me. • "They' will rim down thoso hills," he said, pointing away to tho south,- "out ol the woods about nightfall, and I shall blow my horn. They will all come up from tho town to the tower again; but tht loopholes .ire in very ill repair." - "\Ve never hear of tho Saracens now," I said. ' "Hear of the Saracens!" tho old spirit said. "Hear of the Saracens! They slip one evening out ■of that forest, in the long white robes that they wear, and I blow niy horn. That is the first that anyone ever hears of the. Saracens." "I mean," I said, "that they never come at all. They cannot come, and men fear other things." For I thought the old spirit might rest if he knew that the Saracens can never come again. But he said, "There is nothing in tho world to fear but the.Saracens. Nothing else mat-, ters. How can men, fear other- things? ' Then I explained, so that he might have rest, and told ■ him how all Europe, and. in particular France, had terrible engines of war, both bn.land' and on sea; ami how the Saracens had not-these terrible' engines either on.Gea or land, and socould by no means cross _ the Mediterranean or escane destruction on shore even though they should come there. I alluded to the European railways that conld move armies night and day faster tlian horses could gallop. And when as w.ell as I could I had explained all, he answered, "In time all these things pass away and then there will still be the Saracens." And then I said, "There has not been a Saracen either in France or Spam for over four hundred years." And he mid, "The Saracens! You do not know their cunning. That was ever the way of the Saracens. They do not come for a while, no not they for anions while, and then one day they come. And, peorins southwards, • but not seeinq clearly because of the rising mist, he silently moved to his tower and up its broken stops—Lord Dunsany, in the baturday Review."