They stopped waist-deep in water. Their eyes swam and they waited for the music to begin.

It did.

The tradesman knew the River Singer heard it too.

The water swirled around them and the music surged.

Every chord seemed to fuse the world in oneness.

They stood until the surging current buried them in song. It then receded and the music died away.

And the river was once more a simple river.

Then over that thin silver stream the thunder pealed, and a voice called from the sky above …

“Tradesman! You are the Troubadour! Go now and sing!”

IV

I knew a blind man whom a surgeon helped to see. The doctor never had a lover such as he. It is in such a way that singers love composers.

From the river, he moved on and on in quietness alone.

He still talked to Earthmaker as he always had but now he called him “Father-Spirit.” He loved the newer name.

The Star-Song came upon him with a manly joy.

At last he sang!

He threw the song against the basalt canyon walls.

It ricocheted in splendor, and he remembered far before that he had sung those very canyons into being.

“Father-Spirit!” he shouted at the desert sky, “I love you. Ask of me anything you will and I will do it all.”

The universe gathered up the echoes of his joy and answered back, “I love you, too, my Singer. One thing alone I ask of you:

“Sing my Ancient Star-Song to the world.”

“Father-Spirit, I will sing it, in every country will I sing it, till all the world you love can sing it.”

In joy he sang and sang until he fell asleep upon the desert floor.

V

Hate sometimes stands quite close to love.

God too stands often near to evil—like silent chessmen—side by side.

Only the color of the squares is different.

He was not alone when he awoke.

The ancient World Hater had come upon his resting place and not by chance.

The Hater leered at him with one defiant, impish grin.

“Hello, Singer!”

“Hello, World Hater,” the Troubadour responded.

“You know my name, old friend of man?”

“As you know mine, old enemy of God.”

“What brings you to the desert?”

“The Giver of the Song!”

“And does he let you sing it only in these isolated spots?”

“I only practice here to sing it in the crowded ways!”

It was hard to sing before the World Hater, for he ground each joyous stanza underneath his heel.

The music only seemed to make the venom in his hate more bitter than before.

The Hater drew a silver flute from underneath his studded belt. He placed it to his leathered lips drawn tight to play a melody.

The song surprisingly was sweet. It filled the canyon with an airy-tune and hung its lingering reverberations mysteriously in every cleft. It rippled on the very ground around their feet.