In the springtime of the year three reapers cut to the roots the reeds that grew by the river.

They worked at dawn of day: the skies were gray and dark; the still and misty current flowed in with a full tide; the air was filled with the scent of white fruit-blossoms; in the hush of the daybreak the song of a lark thrilled the silence; under the sweep of the steel the reeds fell.

Resting from their labors, with the rushes slain around them, they, looking vacantly through the hollow casements, saw her body lying there at the feet of the gods of oblivion.

At first they were shaken and afraid. Then the gleam of the gold upon her limbs awakened avarice; and avarice was more powerful than fear. They waded through the rushes and crossed the threshold, and, venturing within, stood looking on her in awe and wonder, then timorously touched her, and turned her face to the faint light. Then they said that she was dead.

"It is that evil thing come back upon us!" they muttered to one another, and stood looking at one another, and at her, afraid.

They spoke in whispers; they were very fearful; it was still twilight.

"It were a righteous act to thrust her in a grave," they murmured to one another at the last,—and paused.

"Ay, truly," they agreed. "Otherwise she may break the bonds of the tomb, and rise again, and haunt us always: who can say? But the gold——"

And then they paused again.

"It were a sin," one murmured,—"it were a sin to bury the pure good gold in darkness. Even if it came from hell——"

"The priests will bless it for us," answered the other twain.

Against the reddening skies the lark was singing.

The three reapers waited a little, still afraid, then hastily, as men slaughter a thing they dread may rise against them, they stripped the white robes from her and drew off the anklets of gold from her feet, and the chains of gold that were riven about her breast and limbs. When they had stripped her body bare, they were stricken with a terror of the dead whom they thus violated with their theft; and, being consumed with apprehension lest any, as the day grew lighter, should pass by there and see what they had done, they went out in trembling haste, and together dug deep down into the wet sands, where the reeds grew, and dragged her still warm body unshrouded to the air, and thrust it down there into its nameless grave, and covered it, and left it to the rising of the tide.

Then with the gold they hurried to their homes.

The waters rose and washed smooth the displaced soil, and rippled in a sheet of silver as the sun rose over the place, and effaced all traces of their work, so that no man knew this thing which they had done.

In her death, as in her life, she was friendless and alone; and none avenged her.

The reeds blew together by the river, now red in the daybreak, now white in the moonrise; and the winds sighed through them wearily, for they were songless, and the gods were dead.

The seasons came and went; the waters rose and sank; in the golden willows the young birds made music with their wings; the soft-footed things of brake and brush stole down through the shade of the leaves and drank at the edge of the shore, and fled away; the people passed down the slow current of the stream with lily sheaves of the blossoming spring, with ruddy fruitage of the summer woods, with yellow harvest of the autumn fields,—passed singing, smiting the frail songless as they went.

But none paused there.

For Thanatos alone knew,—Thanatos, who watched by day and night the slain reeds sigh, fruitless and rootless, on the empty air,—Thanatos, who by the cold sad patience of his gaze spoke, saying,—

"I am the only pity of the world. And even I—to every mortal thing I come too early or too late."

THE END.

Transcriber's Note: Hyphen variations left as printed.