The land seemed full of sniffing and cackling and sly noises, but there was no sound of truth or dissent. Far above the capitol building in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Pepe saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Sniffer was only a small and passing thing: there was a light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the capitol had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by the founding documents, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.