AN hour ago I climbed the narrow, winding path that circles the Hill of Solitude, and as I gained the summit and sat upon that narrow bench, facing the west, I may have fallen into a trance, for there appeared to me an ever-changing vision of unearthly beauty.

The sun was sinking into the sea, directly in a line with the wide estuary that marks a distant river’s mouth. It was setting in a blaze of molten gold, while all above and to the northward, the background of sky glowed with that extraordinary, clear pale-blue blent with green, that makes one of the most striking features of the sunsets seen from this hill. The clouds were fewer to-night, the background wider and clearer, the colour more intense, more transparent, as though the earnest gazer might even discern some greater glory, beyond and through the shining crystal of those heavenly windows.

The calm surface of the sea beneath mirrored the lights above, till sea and sky vied with each other in a perfection of delicate translucent sheen. Northwards a few grey-gold clouds lay against this wondrous background, but in the south they were banked in heavy masses, far down the sky to the limits of vision.

Out of a deep forest-clad valley, immediately behind the hill, a freshening breeze was driving volumes of white mist across the northern spur; driving it, at racing speed, in whirling, tangled wisps, across the water-holes that cluster around the foot of the great range; driving it over the wide plain, out towards the glittering coast-line.

But in a moment, as though by magic, the thick banks of cloud in the south were barred with broad shafts of brilliant rose dorÉe; the spaces of clear sky, which, an instant before, were pale silver-blue, became pale green, momentarily deepening in intensity of tone. Close around the setting sun the gold was turning to flame, and, as the glory of magnificent colouring spread over all the south, the clouds took every rainbow hue, as though charged with a galaxy of living, palpitating radiance, grand yet fateful, a God-painted picture of battle and blazing cities, of routed hosts and desperate pursuit.

Overhead, and filling the arc from zenith to the outer edge of sun-coloured cloud, the sky was a deep sapphire, half covered by soft, rounded clouds of deeper sapphire still, only their edges tinged with gleams of dull gold.

Another sweep of the magic wand, and, as the patches of pale aquamarine deepened into emerald, the heavier clouds became heliotrope, and a thick heliotrope haze floated gently across the wide plain, seawards. The fires of crimson light blazed brighter in the gathering gloom of rising mist and lowering cloud, but the sea shone with ever-increasing clearness in the rapidly narrowing space of yet unhidden view.

For a moment the mist disappeared, as suddenly as it came; the sapphire clouds took a deeper hue, heliotrope turned to purple, the crimson lights were softer but richer in colour, streaked with narrow bands of gold, and dark arrowlike shafts shot from the bow of Night.

Standing there, it was as though one were vouchsafed, for a moment, a vision of the Heavenly City which enshrines the glory of God. One caught one’s breath and shivered, as at the sound of violins quivering under inspired fingers, or the voices of boys singing in a cathedral choir.

All this while a solitary, ragged-edged cloud-kite hung, almost motionless, in middle distance, over the glittering waters of the river mouth. This cloud gathered blackness and motion, spread itself out, like a dark thick veil, and, as the mist, now grey and cold, closed in, the last sparks of the dying sunset were extinguished in the distant sea.

And then I was stumbling down the path in the darkness, my eyes blinded by the glory of the vision; and as I groped through the gloom, and heard the wail of the night-wind rushing from those far-away mountains, across this lonely peak, I began to wonder whether I had not been dreaming dreams conjured up by the sadly-sweet associations of the place.

The darkness deepened, and, as I reached the dividing saddle and began to mount the opposite hill, I heard the faint jingle of a dangling coin striking metal, and I said to myself that such associations, acting on the physical weariness resulting from days of intolerable strain, followed by nights of worse regret, were enough to account for far stranger journeys in the land which lies beyond the Gates of Ivory and Horn.