And then when the
twilight, the blessed one of the twin twilights, one in course towards
day, one in course towards night, has deepened and has died, they can
dare to be themselves, to spread their short wings, and to flutter on
their vagrant and monotonous courses. It is a great though secret
army--the army of the bats. It scours through cities. No weather will
keep it quite restful in camp. No darkness will blind it into immobility.
The mainspring of sin beats in it as drums beat in a Soudanese fantasia,
as blood beats in a heart. The air of night is black with the movement of
the bats. They fly so thickly round some lives that those lives can never
see the sky, never catch a glimpse of the stars, never hear the wings of
the angels, but always and ever the wings of the bats. Nor can such lives
hear the whisper of Nature and of the sirens who walk purely with Nature.
The murmur of the bats drowns all other sounds, and makes a hoarse and
monotonous music. And the eyes of the bats are hungry, and the breath of
the bats is poisonous, and the flight of the bats is a charade of the
tragedy of the flight of the devils in hell.
How could Valentine be one of the bats? It seemed to Julian that if
Valentine tried to join them they would fall upon him, as certain birds
will fall upon one who is not of their tribe, and kill him.
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