She had fought back the fever too long, her brain and emotions had been strung to a fatal pitch, and the disease, like a hurricane, carried her on for hours, tearing at her being.
Her own mother sat in a corner, stricken and numb.

At last she fell asleep in her chair, but Parpon and his mother slept not at all.

Now and again the dwarf went to the door and looked out at the night, so still, and full of the wonder of growth and rest.
Far up on Dalgrothe Mountain a soft brazen light lay like a shield against the sky, a strange, hovering thing.

Parpon knew it to be the reflection of the campfires in the valley, where Lagroin and his men were sleeping.

There came, too, out of the general stillness, a long, low murmur, as though nature were crooning: the untiring rustle of the river, the water that rolled on and never came back again.