They had, of course, no idea of the meaning of the words; but the music
spoke to them and told them that this fair visitant from another world
could speak the same speech as theirs. Every note and cadence was
repeated with absolute fidelity, and so the speech, common to the two
far-distant worlds, became a link connecting this wandering son and
daughter of the Earth with the sons and daughters of the Love-Star.
The throng fell back a little and two figures, apparently male and
female, came to Zaidie and held out their right hands and began
addressing her in perfectly harmonised song, which, though utterly
unintelligible to her in the sense of speech, expressed sentiments which
could not possibly be mistaken, as there was a faint suggestion of the
old English song running through the little song-speech that they made,
and both Zaidie and her husband rightly concluded that it was intended
to convey a welcome to the strangers from beyond the cloud-veil.
And then the strangest of all possible conversations began. Redgrave,
who had no more notion of music than a walrus, perforce kept silence. In
fact, he noticed with a certain displeasure which vanished speedily with
a musical, and half-malicious little laugh from Zaidie, that when he
spoke the Bird-Folk drew back a little and looked in something like
astonishment at him; but Zaidie was already in touch with them, and half
by song and half by signs she very soon gave them an idea of what they
were and where they had come from.
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